Palace de la Concorde
The Place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the Champs-Elysses to the west and the Tuileries Gardens to the east. Filled with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the king at that time. The square showcased an equestrian statue of the king, which had been commissioned in 1748 by the city of Paris, sculpted mostly by Edme Bouchardon, and completed by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle after the death of Bouchardon. It became the Place de la Revolution and held in its center the guillotine that executed in particular Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton, Robespierre, and 2800 others 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 series of transformations et several 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 today maintains the general appearance that it had in the eighteenth century. The statue of Louis XV, removed during 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 high and weighing 230 tons, which marked the entrance to the Amon temple at Luxor, was installed in 1836. Hittorf completed the decoration of the place between 1833 and 1846.
The obelisk is at the center of an oval whose two centers are fountains constructed at the same period. At each corner of the octagon is found a statue that represents one of the large French cities: Lille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Brest and Rouen. The Horses of Marly, monumental statues representing a group of horses, that are found at the beginning of the Champs Elysees are now at the Louvre Museum and have been replaced by copies. The place is bordered to the north by l'Hôtel Crillon and l'Hotel 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 Elyses and to the south by the bridge of the Concorde built by Perronnet between 1787 and 1790. This bridge which leads to the Palais Bourbon was enlarged between 1930 and 1932.
From the Place de la Concorde you can see the Arc de Triomphe (west), the Madeleine (north), the Tuileries (east) and, across the Seine, the Palais Bourbon, now the Assemblée Nationale(south).
