Place de la Concorde

Located at the foot of the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, the Place de La Concorde was designed by Jacques Ange Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the Champs Élysées and the Tuileries Gardens. Filled with statues and fountains, the area was named “Place Louis XV” to honor the then king. At the north end, two magnificent identical stone buildings were constructed. Divided by the rue Royale, these structures are among the best examples of that period’s architecture and remain there to this day. Initially they served as government offices and one continues as the French Naval Ministry. Shortly after its construction, the second building was made into the luxurious Hotel Crillon where Marie Antoinette soon spent afternoons relaxing and taking piano lessons.

During the French Revolution the statue of Louis XIV was torn down and the area renamed “Place de la Révolution”. In a grim reminder to the nobility of a gruesome past, when the “Place des Grèves” was a site where the nobility and members of the bourgeoisies were entertained watching convicted criminals being dismembered alive, the new revolutionary government erected the guillotine. Hundreds of nobles, plus King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, were beheaded in front of cheering crowds. With the “Reign of Terror” subsiding, by 1795 the government began calling it Place de la Concorde and in 1830 the name was made official.

Today, the gruesome history of Place de la Concorde is lost behind the daily hordes of motor vehicles rushing past a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II. Gifted by Egypt to France in 1836, King Louis-Philippe had the 3,300 year-old Luxor Obelisk installed in the centre of Place de la Concorde. The red granite column rises more than 100 feet high and weighs over 220 tons. Missing its original cap, believed stolen in the 6th century B.C., in 1998 the government of France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk.