The most dazzling recent addition to the illuminated Paris skyline came last fall, when the Cour Napoleon of the Louvre was lighted for the official opening of the Richelieu wing.

The Grand Louvre project separated the department into two exhibition spaces; the French collection is displayed in the Richelieu wing, and foreign works in the Denon wing.

It will aim to be as good as the Richelieu wing of the Louvre.

The western Cour Marly in the Richelieu wing will be used solely for Marly sculptures.

This new second phase of the Grand Louvre consists first of the Richelieu wing on the north side of the Cour Napoleon.

The 39 newly designed rooms for French painting that opened over the last year in the Sully wing, adjacent to the Richelieu wing, and also count as part of this design phase.

Rooms vacated to stock the Richelieu wing will be refurbished.

While initial reaction to the new additions has been largely positive, both the shopping mall and the Richelieu wing are unlikely to be totally free of controversy.

The addition of the Richelieu wing, which is equivalent in size to the Musee d'Orsay, has allowed hundreds of works to come out of the museum's storerooms.

They had reached the entrance to the cafe in the Richelieu wing, and joined a queue for a table only marginally shorter than the one preceding La Jocunde.