I'll start at the beginning, though. The area was designed and started in 1755 under King Louis XV, and it originally featured a giant equestrian statue of him in the middle. It was a good location for such a place, being at the opening of what I think of as the "royal sector" of Paris: it is at the mouth of the Tuileries gardens, which is the land outside the Louvre palace, which in turn is across the street from another royal residence, the Palais Royal (see my post on the 1st arrondissement). At the time the Tuileries and obviously the Louvre were for royal use only; the side that is currently open, allowing the public in, was closed, and there were walls around the entire thing. And down the street from the Place Louis XV, as it was known then, was the huge new church La Madeleine, which was built to be the new official royal church. Here is a view down the street looking towards the Place de la Concorde from La Madeleine:
So it's not very far.
Also built along with the Place were the two remaining lovely stone buildings on each side of the street on the north side of the circle. You can mostly just see one here, but they're identical (this is my mom's picture).
The building on the right was originally the home of the Naval Ministry but I believe it's either a hotel or offices, or both, now. The one on the left was the home of a French duke, and continued to be home to aristocracy until 1907. It was the Nazi headquarters during their occupation of Paris, and suffered damage from tanks during the Liberation in 1944.
From its construction to the Revolution the Place was mostly just a busy intersection with a large statue, as there is a bridge across the river right next to it. By the 1780's, however, the royals had pretty much abandoned the Louvre palace for Versailles, and so by the time the Revolution came in 1789 it was, as far as the revolutionaries were concerned, up for grabs.
By 1793 the radical revolutionaries had come to power and several, including Robespierre, took up parts of the palace as their offices. It was convenient, anyway, because the National Assembly building, which is more or less Congress, is just across the bridge on the Left Bank. Given the Place's practical and symbolic significance it was easily chosen as the new home of Madame la Guillotine in the same year. It was also renamed the Place de la Revolution.
Virtually every important person who was executed during the Revolution died here: royals Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Louis' sister the Princesse de Lamballe; Marat-assassin Charlotte Corday; revolutionaries Robespierre, St Just, Danton, Desmoulins; early feminist Olympe de Gouges. As heads came off in front of a huge crowd, an old woman sat beside the guillotine, cutting sections of victims' hair for souvenirs.
Legend says that the blood from the guillotine irreversibly penetrated the pavement, and that for years after the Revolution horses used the shy away from entering place because of the smell of blood (not true).
The guillotine was removed in 1795 and shortly after the Place was renamed Place de la Concorde, to set the new phase of the Revolution apart from the radical guillotining phase. Then followed a string of name changes that indicated how the political winds were blowing: it stayed pretty much the same under Napoleon, but when the monarchy was restored in 1814 it switched back to Place Louis XV, then in 1826 Place Louis XVI (to honor the king who was beheaded there). Finally after another revolution in 1830 it was reverted back to Place de la Concorde and has been ever since.
Starting in the mid 1830's the Place underwent major renovations, which pretty much constructed its modern appearance. The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire gave this real ancient Egyptian obelisk to France as a nice present; it was soon placed here as the centerpiece of the modern Place:
(Semi-related story: in 2008 I was feeling mopey one night and walked from home to the Place and called a friend from NY while sitting underneath the obelisk. Being nighttime I thought I was safe from tourists but next thing I knew a group of 50+ Japanese tourists were all taking pictures of me - not the obelisk, but me. I guess they thought it was a nice picture to get a mopey Parsian sitting next to a monument.)
The obelisk stands just where the guillotine used to be. Interestingly, two obelisks were actually "given" to France at this time, but the other one was too large and heavy to be moved, so remained in Egypt even though technically it belonged to France. It was kindly "given back" to the Egyptians in the 1990's.
The next project was to install the statues and fountains. The fountains are allegorical: one represents river commerce and navigation (with personifications of the Rhone and Rhine rivers) and the other is the same for oceans (with personifications of the Atlantic and Mediterranean).
A close up picture, which is not mine:
The statues are at each of the eight angles of the Place. They are female figures, each of whom represents one of the major cities of France: Brest, Rouen, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, and Strasbourg. Paris isn't there because well, they're in Paris.
This one, as you can see, is Strasbourg, and illustrates how seriously people took these statues: in 1871 when the city was lost to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war the statue was covered with a black mourning shroud until it was won back after World War I.
The lights and other decoration were later made with a similar green and gold nautical motif from the fountains:
Today the Place is the busiest intersection in Paris after the Arc de Triomphe roundabout at the other end of the Champs Elysees. It's a bit hard to appreciate all the interesting details here when you're concerned about getting hit by cars going in every direction.
I still like, it though, and like I mentioned, I go there sometimes if I'm feeling down. It cheers me up in a morbid way I suppose!
It also has a really nice view of the Eiffel Tower.
1 comment:
I vividly remember dodging the cars there, after I left the louvre and was walking the distance to the other sites along the Champs. I too loved this part of Paris and found it very nice to hang out in, even though it was April, as the weather was very nice. You have a wonderful way to telling the story of current day life in Paris, and wrapping it around history and architecture and religion and all the things that make Paris so special. When you return to Paris later in life you will be able to see what has changed and judge, more than most,how that change has helped/hurt that "feel". Great post.----me
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