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Next to the Eiffel Tower and the Arc du Triomphe, Notre-Dame probably is the most easily recognizable building in Paris.
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 Place de la Concorde, Paris
Between the Champs Elysées and the Tuileries Gardens, there lies the Place de la Concorde. With traffic roaring and careening about seemingly in all directions, it is easy to feel lost on its 84,000 square meters.
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It was designed by Gabriel begun in 1748 and completed in 1763. It was first called Place Louis XV, and planned as a worthy setting for the royal statue. Place de la Concorde is often associated with the bloody events that took place on its pavement. In 1770, for example, 133 spectators were trampled to death at a huge fireworks display on the occasion of Marie-Antoinette's wedding to the Dauphin. A few
decades later, the revolutionaries, who were intent on eliminating all royalist monuments trom the face of the earth, removed Louis XlV's statue, dubbed the plaza Place de la Révolution, and set up their guillotine on it. Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and 1119 other people lost their lives here, among them Charlotte Corday (the murderess of Marat), Danton, Philippe Égalité and Robespierre. In order to help these bloody events on their way to oblivion, the Directory renamed the square Place de la Concorde in 1795. And, officially, the 1830 Revolution renamed it Place de la Concorde. |
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