La Place De La Concorde In Paris
The Place de la Concorde, which is the largest square in The French capital, is situated along the Seine and separates the Tuilerie Gardens from the beginning of the Champs Elysées. It is in the 8th arrondissement, or district, of the city.
The place was built to hold an equestrian sculpture of Louis XV that the town of The french capital commissioned in 1748 from Bouchardon to offer to the king. The place formed an octagon bordered by large moats that no longer exist. In contrast to older places that were closed, La Place de la Concorde, mainly open, served like an intersection as well as a ornament.
It became the Place de la Révolution and held in its center the guillotine that executed in particular Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton, Robespierre, and 2800 other people between 1793 and 1795. It is said that the smell of blood was so strong that a herd of cattle refused to cross the place. After the Revolution it suffered a succession of transformations and many changes of name: place de la Concorde, place Louis XV again, place Louis XVI, place de la Chartre, and once again place de la Concorde to symbolize the end of a troubled era and the hope of a better future.
The place nowadays maintains the general appearance that it had during the eighteenth century, if you ignore the traffic. The sculpture of Louis XV, removed for the duration of the Revolution, was replaced by the Obelisk of Luxor given by the viceroy of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, to Louis Phillipe. The obelisk, 22.83 meters far above the ground and weighing 230 tons, which marked the entrance to the Amon temple at Luxor, was installed in 1836. On each corner of the octagon is found a sculpture that represents one of the large French cities: Lille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Brest and Rouen.
The place is delimited to the north by l’Hôtel Crillon and l’Hôtel of the Navy Minister that frames the rue Royale, to the east by the Jeu de Paume and L’Orangerie of the Tuileries, to the west by the beginning of the Champs Elysés and to the south by the bridge of the Concorde built by Perronnet between 1787 and 1790.
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