University of Virginia Library

6. Place de la Concorde.

The largest and most strikingly beautiful square in Paris is
the **Place de la Concorde, 400 paces in length and of nearly
the same width, bounded on the S. by the Seine, W. by the
Champs Elysées, N. by the Rue de Rivoli and E. by the garden
of the Tuileries. From the centre of the square a view is obtained
of the Palais du Corps Législatif (p. 152), the Madeleine, the

Tuileries and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile. When viewed by
gas-light, the scene is scarcely less striking, the lamps in the
direction of the Champs Elysées as far as the Triumphal Arch
forming an apparently interminable avenue. The two magnificent
edifices of exactly uniform exterior on the N. side of the
square, separated from each other by the Rue Royale leading to
the Madeleine, served as Garde-Meubles of the crown before the
time of the first revolution: that to the E. is now the seat of
the minister of the marine.

One hundred years ago the site of this magnificent Place was
little more than a piece of waste ground. After the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle (Oct. 18th, 1748) which terminated the Austrian
war of succession, Louis XV. "graciously permitted" the mayor
and municipal dignitaries (échevins) to erect a statue to him.
The work was at once commenced, but was not completed till
1763, when the equestrian statue in bronze by Bouchardon was
erected in the Place, which then received the appellation of
Place de Louis XV. The pedestal was adorned with four figures
by Pigalle, emblematical of Strength, Wisdom, Justice and Peace.
Soon after the erection of the statue the following pasquinade
appeared on the pedestal:

A few days later was added the sarcasm: A third termed the statue a "statua statuœ".

The Place was at that period surrounded by deep ditches
(filled up in 1852), and the new buildings on the N. side were
in course of construction, when, May 30th, 1770, during an exhibition
of fireworks in honour of the nuptials of the Dauphin
(afterwards Louis XVI.) with Marie Antoinette, such a panic was
occasioned by the accidental discharge of some rockets that upwards
of 1200 persons lost their lives in the confusion which
ensued or by being precipitated into the ditches, and 2000 more
were severely injured.

On August 11th, 1792, the day after the storming of the
Bastille, the statue of the king was removed by order of the
Convention and melted down, the metal being chiefly employed
for the coinage of pieces of two sous. A daubed clay image of
the "Goddess of Liberty" was then placed on the pedestal, and
derisively termed "La Liberté de boue". The Place itself received
the name of Place de la Révolution.

On January 21st, 1793, the guillotine (p. 94) here commenced
its bloody work with the execution of Louis XVI. On July 17th
Charlotte Corday was beheaded; on October 2nd Brissot, chief of

the Gironde, along with twenty-one of his adherents; on October
16th the ill-fated queen Marie Antoinette; on November 14th,
Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, better known as Egalité (father
of king Louis Philippe); on May 12th, 1794, the princess Elisabeth
Marie Hélène, sister of Louis XVI. On March 24th, at
the instance of Danton and Robespierre, Hébert, the most determined
opponent of all social rule, together with his partizans,
here terminated his career on the scaffold; the next victims were
the adherents of Marat and the Orleanists; then on April 8th
Danton himself and his party, amongst whom was Camille Desmoulins;
subsequently the atheists Chaumette and Anacharsis
Cloots on April 16th, and the wives of Camille Desmoulins,
Hébert and others. On July 28th, 1794, Robespierre and his
associates, his brother, Dumas, St. Just and other members of the
comité du salut public here met a retributive end, and on the
following day 70 members of the Commune whom Robespierre
had employed as his tools; on July 30th twelve other members
of the same body.

Lasource, one of the Girondists, called out to his judges:
"Je meurs dans un moment où le peuple a perdu sa raison; vous,
vous mourrez le jour où il la retrouvera." Of St. Just, Camille
Desmoulins had said: "Il s'estime tant, qu'il porte avec respect sa
tête sur ses épaules comme un saint-sacrement." St. Just replied:
"Et moi, je lui ferai porter la sienne comme un St. Denis".
(St. Denis, as is well known, is usually represented as a martyr,
bearing his head in his hands.) St. Just kept his word; a few
months later he himself fell a victim.

From January 21st, 1793, to May 3rd, 1795 more than
2800 persons here perished by the guillotine. When it was afterwards
proposed to erect a large fountain on the spot where the
scaffold of Louis XVI. had stood, the plan was strenuously and
successfully opposed by Chateaubriand, who aptly observed that
all the water in the world would not suffice to remove the bloodstains
which sullied the Place.

In 1799 the square received the name of Place de la Concorde,
in 1814 it was called Place de Louis XV., in 1826 Place
de Louis XVI., as it was intended here to erect an expiatory
monument to the memory of that monarch. About 1830 the
name of Place de la Concorde was resumed, and it was resolved
to adorn the square with some monument which should not bear
any allusion whatever to political events. An opportunity of
carrying out this resolution was soon afforded by the *Obelisk
of Luxor, a gift of Mehemed Ali, Pascha of Egypt, to Louis
Philippe.

In front of the great temple of ancient Thebes, the Luxor
of the present day, stood two beautiful ancient Egyptian obelisks.
As a token of gratitude for services rendered, the Pascha offered

one of these to the French government. In the summer of 1831
a vessel was accordingly despatched to Egypt for the purpose of
conveying home the smaller and more beautiful of these two
relics. The task, however, proved of such an arduous nature
(comp. p. 72) that the vessel did not return with its costly freight
till August 1833. The erection of the obelisk in its present
position was not finally effected till 1836. The expenses entailed
by the whole undertaking amounted to two millions of francs,
and, as the obelisk has a weight of 500,000 lbs., the sarcasm-loving
Parisians observe that the stone of which it consists has
cost 4 fr. per pound.

This obelisk, one of the most beautiful in the world, is
72 ft. in height, the pedestal on which it stands 12 ft. and the
steps by which it is approached 15 ft., so that the entire height
is about 100 ft. The obelisk itself is a monolith, a block of
solid, reddish granite or syenite, and is inscribed with three
perpendicular rows of well-defined hieroglyphics on each side.
The inscriptions are laudatory of king Rameses III of Egypt,
better known in Europe as Sesostris the Great, who reigned about
1500 years before the Christian era. The obelisk is, therefore,
upwards of 3300 years old.

On the N. side of the pedestal is represented the apparatus
employed in the removal and embarkation of the monument, on
the S. side that employed in its erection in Paris.

The inscription on the E. side is as follows: Ludovicus
Philippus I., Francorum Rex, ut antiquissimum artis Aegyptiacae
opus, idemque recentis gloriae ad Nilum armis partae insigne monumentum
Franciae ab ipsa Aegypto donatum posteritati prorogaret,
obeliscum die 25. Aug. A. 1832 Thebis Hecatompylis avectum navique
ad id constructa intra menses 13 in Galliam perductum erigendum
curavit. Die 25. Octobris Anni 1836. Anno reg. septimo.

(Louis Philippe I., King of the French, in order to hand down to posterity
one of the most ancient Egyptian works of art, and at the same
time a magnificent monument, presented by Egypt herself, of the glory
obtained by the arms of France on the banks of the Nile, caused this obelisk
to be removed from Thebes with its hundred gates, August 25th, 1832,
and within 13 months to be conveyed to France in a ship constructed
for the purpose, and to be erected. October 26th, 1836. In the 7th year
of his reign.)

The inscription on the W. side is as follows: En présence
du Roi Louis Philippe Ier, cet obélisque, transporté de Louqsor en
France, a été dressé sur ce piédestal par M. Le Bas, ingénieur,
aux applaudissements d'un peuple immense, le 25 octobre, 1836.

The two magnificent *Fountains (Fontaines de la Place de
la Concorde) constitute another striking ornament of the square.
Each of them consists of a round basin, 50 ft. in diameter, above
which rise two other basins, 20 ft. and 12 ft in diameter respectively.
The lower basin is surrounded by Tritons and Nereids,
holding dolphins which spout water into the second basin.

The fountain to the S. is dedicated to the seas. The figures
which support the second basin represent the Pacific Ocean and
the Mediterranean; the genii are emblematical of the four kinds
of fishery (the common, the pearl, the coral and the shell). The
fountain to the N. is dedicated to the rivers. The principal
figures here represent the Rhine and the Rhone, the genii are
personifications of Corn, Wine, Fruit and Flowers. The figures
and the upper basins are of bronzed iron, the lower basins of
granite. The fountains are abundantly supplied with water from
a large reservoir near the Barrière de Monceau.

The eight marble figures on pedestals of the same material
which are placed round the Place, represent the most considerable
towns of France: Lille and Strasbourg by Pradier, Bordeaux and
Nantes by Calhouet, Rouen and Brest by Cortot, and Marseilles
and Lyons by Petitot. Along the balustrades which enclose the
square are placed twenty lofty rostral columns which serve
as candelabra; the carriage causeways are bordered with forty
ornamental lamp-posts.

The Place in its present condition was not completed till
1854, when much was done to beautify and perfect it. It now
presents an imposing "tout ensemble" which is probably without
a parallel in the world.

On April 10th, 1814, a solemn service was here performed
in presence of the emperors Francis and Alexander and king
Frederick William III. in memory of Louis XVI., after which a
Te Deum was sung as a thanksgiving for their victory. Prussian
and Russian troops were on that occasion bivouacked in the
Champs Elysées, and one year later English soldiers.