Royal return for a Paris icon

Last week, standing on the balcony of the newly reopened Hôtel de Crillon, I was looking directly out over the Place de la Concorde. At its centre, the golden peak of the Egyptian obelisk glowed in the sun and, on either side, the leaves of the trees on the Champs Elysees and the Tuileries Garden seemed to shimmer in the heatwave.

It’s a view that has been shuttered by hoardings for more than four years, as this famous and historic hotel has been almost completely gutted in a lavish renovation programme reputed to have cost nearly £400 million. Now, finally, the shutters have been removed and the grand stone pediment and columns of the imposing neoclassical façade open once more on to the square. As I was taking all this in I should really have been thinking about how the Crillon was reinventing itself for the 21st century. But I couldn’t help but be distracted by the history of this great space in the heart of Paris, and I began to wonder what Marie Antoinette would have thought of it all.

In her day, the young French queen would have had rather a different prospect. It was here that she held her wedding celebrations in 1770, about 10 years after the square had been laid out. A monumental equestrian statue of the king formed the centrepiece, and it was named Place Louis XV in his honour. The Hôtel de Crillon was one of four imposing classical frontages to line the north side of the square.

Once married, she and Louis XVI, who ascended the throne in 1774, spent most of their time in Versailles. But they were forced to move back to Paris during the Revolution in 1789, and Marie Antoinette apparently visited the hotel, by then the residence of the Comte de Crillon, to play the piano. Place Louis XV had been renamed Place de la

The historic Hôtel de Crillon has been transformed in a lavish restoration programme. Nick Trend is the first to check in

Salon Marie Antoinette, top; and the façade of the renovated Hôtel de Crillon