Architecture of the Paris Métro feature stonework, statues and other replica museum pieces, under subtle lighting, which together make the station into an antechamber of the Musée du Louvre. Until the reconstruction of the Louvre in the late 1980s, this station was the closest to the museum's entrance. When I. M. Pei's pyramid was added to the Louvre and made the central entrance at the end of the 1980s, the neighboring metro station Palais-Royal became the closest to the museum entrance; so close, in fact, that a subterranean corridor was constructed leading directly from the museum to the Palais-Royal station, which was renamed "Palais-Royal –
Paris in the 16th century where the courts, treasury, and other government officials worked. When the King returned to Paris, the Louvre became the main royal residence. The poor were concentrated in the narrow, winding streets on the Île-de-la-Cité and near Les Halles. When the King returned to Paris, the nobles of the Court began to build large residences in the Marais district, in the east of the city. Paris was the largest city in Europe, rivaled only by London, and by far the largest city in France; the second-largest French city, Rouen, had only fifty thousand inhabitants. It was described by visitors at the