3-039-217 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The French Siege of Paris: concert for the wounded at the Tuileries, 1871. View of a '...public concert at the Tuileries Palace for the fund to relieve the wounded National Guards...the price of a ticket for the concert, in the Salle des Maréchaux was three francs. This splendid hall is in the exact middle of the great building. It is of the height of two stories, with a gallery around it, on a line with the upper range of windows. The fretted ceiling and cornices are richly gilded; there are two huge pillars, decorated with variously figured and coloured designs; an alcove on one hand, and a balcony on the other; the portals are draped with hangings of dark green, adorned with golden bees. Fourteen lifesize portraits of French Marshals of the First Empire are suspended on the walls, and beneath these are ranged the marble busts of many French military and naval commanders. The portraits on this occasion were covered. This apartment will hold about 5000 people, but many more tickets had been sold...The audience was a very mixed company, and not very orderly in their behaviour. The music was badly arranged, and indifferently performed; but Madame Agar, of the Grand Opéra, was one of the singers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.