Place de la Concorde

Place de la Concorde - the square in Paris between the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs Elysees is considered the largest square in Paris. At each corner of the octagonal square is a statue representing the French cities of Bordeaux, Brest, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Rouen and Strasbourg.

 

 

Place de la Concorde. Guided tour.

 

Place de la Concorde. Paris.

 

By this time in Paris there were already two completely different, but each in its own way elegant and refined, Place des Vosges and Place Vendôme. For the recovery of Louis XV, merchants and Parisian elders decided to make a gift - an equestrian statue of the monarch. For the statue, an appropriate frame was required, and that was to become the square named after Louis XV-d. In 1763, a large statue of the king was erected, and the square was arranged in 1772 by the architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel.

The unusual project of this architect was that only in its northern part there were two palaces, and the rest of the square was completely open. Despite the fact that the facade is made following the example of the Perrault colonnade in the Louvre, Gabriel's colonnade bypassed it in its beauty and originality.

Over time, one of the palaces was sold to the Duke of Crillon. Until 1904, it remained in the possession of the family, and later, in 1909, one of the most expensive and prestigious hotels in Paris, named after the Duke Crillon, was opened in the palace.

 

 

The second palace initially housed a royal warehouse consisting of paintings by Raphael, armor, carpets from the Louvre galleries and even diamonds. A small part was occupied by Marie-Antoinette's apartment, where she stayed while in Paris. Since 1792, the building housed the Ministry of the Navy, where the young official Guy de Maupassant worked.

In 1792, during the French Revolution, the statue was replaced with a large "Liberté" (Liberty) statue, and the square was renamed Place de la Révolution. A guillotine was installed in the center of the square, where in a couple of years 1119 people were beheaded, including famous people: King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, as well as the revolutionary Robespierre.

 

Place de la Concorde. Panoramic Views and History in French.

Place de la Concorde in French.

 

After the revolution, the square was renamed several times until 1830, when it received its current name "Place de la Concorde".

In the 19th century, an obelisk of 3200 BC was erected in the center of the Place de la Concorde. from the temple of Ramses II at Thebes. This monolith is made of pink granite, 23 meters high and weighing about 230 tons. In 1831, the Viceroy of Egypt offered three obelisks to King Louis Philippe of France, but only one was transported to Paris.

The obelisk - sometimes called 'L'aiguille de Cléopâtre' or Cleopatra's Needle - is covered in hieroglyphs depicting the reigns of the pharaohs Ramses II and Ramses III. Pictures on the pedestal describe the transportation of the obelisk to Paris and its installation on the square in 1836.

More information You can find at Wikipedia.