It was a fashionable and expensive square to live in during the 17th and 18th centuries, and one of the main reasons for the chic nature of Le Marais among the Parisian nobility.

The Place Royale was inaugurated in 1612 with a grand carrousel to celebrate the engagement of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, and became a prototype of the residential squares of European cities that were to come.

What was new about the Place Royale, was that the house-fronts were all built to the same design, probably by Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau,[1] of red brick with strips of stone quoins over vaulted arcades that stand on square pillars.

The Place Royale inspired subsequent developments of Paris that created a suitable urban background for the French aristocracy and nobility.

Within a mere five-year period, the king oversaw an unmatched building scheme for the ravaged medieval city: additions to the Louvre Palace, the Pont Neuf, and the Hôpital Saint Louis as well as the two royal squares.