On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare (62-acre) green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and large basins of water where children sail model boats.

Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or.

The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting (floor plan).

[8] The gallery in the east wing had been intended for the display of paintings celebrating Henry IV and buildings housing stables and services were planned to either side of the pavilions flanking the entrance on the street, but these projects remained unfinished in 1631, when the Queen Mother was forced from court,[9] following the "Day of the Dupes" in November.

[10] Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, Marguerite of Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, Duchess of Montpensier La Grande Mademoiselle.

In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite of Orléans, duchess of Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, King Louis XIV, in 1694.

In some of her more exclusive parties, Madame de Berry also played the leading part in elaborate "tableaux-vivants" that represented mythological scenes and in which she displayed her person impersonating Venus or Diana.

She welcomed the visiting Tsar splendidly dressed in a magnificent sack-back gown which showcased her voluptuous bosom as well as her mischievous face but also helped conceal her swelling for she was then in an "interesting condition".

[13] On 2 April 1719, after a gruelling four-day labour, shut up in a small room of her palace, the young widow was delivered of a still-born baby girl, supposedly fathered by her lieutenant of the guards, the Count of Riom.

At the same time he created a neo-classical escalier d'honneur in the west wing, a single monumental flight enclosed by an Ionic colonnade and covered with a coffered barrel vault, the construction of which resulted in the destruction of the long gallery that had formerly housed the cycle of paintings by Rubens.

In the 1850s, at the request of Emperor Napoleon III, Gisors created the highly-decorated Salle des Conférences (inspired by the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre), which influenced the nature of subsequent official interiors of the Second Empire, including those of the Palais Garnier.

"The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Goering; he was also his match in corpulence", wrote Armaments Minister Albert Speer after a visit to Sperrle in Paris.