5/5 MariuS 2 years ago on Google
Great
location,
a
visiter!
Place
de
La
Concorde
is
perhaps
the
most
spacious
square
in
Paris.
Unlike
other
squares
in
the
city,
it
is
bounded
by
buildings
only
to
the
North.
Louis
XV
architect
Jacques-ane
Gabriel
deliberately
opened
the
view
of
the
Seine,
the
Tuileries
Park
and
the
Champs-Elysees.
Parisians
who
came
to
the
opening
in
1763
saw
on
the
square
not
a
long
pencil
obelisk,
but
a
statue
of
Louis
XV.
However,
the
subsequent
history
of
the
square
was
tragic.
On
may
30,
1770,
Parisians
celebrated
the
second
(first
by
proxy)
marriage
of
the
grandson
of
Louis
XV
with
the
Austrian
Princess
Marie
Antoinette.
Many
people
gathered
as
the
Treasury
paid
for
music,
fireworks,
wine,
bread
and
meat.
The
celebration
ended
with
a
terrible
stampede
and
the
death
of
139
Parisians.
A
century
later,
the
same
thing
will
happen
to
the
Russian
Emperor
Nicholas
II
on
the
Khodynka
field.
As
you
know,
he
shared
the
fate
of
Louis
XVI.
Concorde
it
was
too
late.
With
the
guillotine.
The
guillotine
moved
here
to
the
place
de
La
revolution
from
the
famous
place
de
Greve
(now
the
place
Hotel
de
Ville)
in
1792
to
mark
the
30th
anniversary
of
the
square
with
the
execution
of
Louis
XVI.
However,
deprived
of
Royal
privileges,
he
was
called
by
that
time
citizen
Louis
Capet.
His
hapless
wife
followed
him
six
months
later
in
October
1793
here.
However,
the
accusers
Danton,
Hebert,
Chaumette
and
Robespierre
were
beheaded
here.
After
all,
the
guillotine,
a
Scottish
invention,
was
applied
to
all
citizens
without
exception,
which
emphasized
their
equality
before
the
law.
The
directory
removed
the
guillotine
from
the
square
and
renamed
it
the
place
de
La
Concorde.
Artist
David
proposed
to
install
a
Statue
of
"Horses
of
Marley"
on
the
side
of
the
Champs-Elysees.
However,
the
main
changes
occurred
almost
half
a
century
later
under
Louis-Philippe
in
1836.
The
main
landmark
of
the
square
is
the
23-meter
Luxor
obelisk
of
Ramses
II.
Installing
the
230-ton
gift
of
the
Governor
of
Egypt,
Mehmet
Ali,
was
a
non-trivial
task.
Allegorical
statues
of
the
8
main
cities
of
France
(Marseille,
Lyon,
Bordeaux,
Brest,
Nantes,
Lille,
Rouen
and
Strasbourg)
emphasize
regional
unity.
Paris
and
Toulouse
are
forgotten.
Interestingly,
the
statue
of
Strasbourg
was
draped
from
1871
to
1918,
when
the
capital
of
Alsace
was
occupied
as
a
result
of
the
disastrous
Franco-Prussian
war
of
1870.
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