Description of the attraction
Place de la Concorde is considered the most beautiful in Paris. It is located extremely well: it overlooks the perspective of the Champs Elysees, the Tuileries garden and the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower.
Founded by Louis XV. The choice of the location was influenced by the exact economic calculation: in 1755 this territory was not included in the city, the land was cheap. The architect Gabriel designed the Louis XV square in the form of an octagon with an equestrian statue of the king in the center.
During the revolution, the monument was demolished, the Statue of Liberty was erected on the pedestal, the square was given a new name - Revolution. Here Louis XVI was executed, and then a guillotine was placed near the terrace of the Tuileries garden, on which 1119 people died: Philippe, Duke of Orleans, Charlotte Corday, Saint-Just, Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre. In 1795, with the end of civil strife, the square was named its current name.
Under King Louis Philippe I, between the two revolutions (1830-1848), the square was renovated. The oldest of the Parisian monuments, a granite obelisk of the era of Pharaoh Ramses II, was installed on it. The monument weighing 250 tons was donated by Egypt to France, and a special ship "Luxor" was built to deliver it here. The rise of the obelisk, in front of the royal family and a crowd of two hundred thousand, took three hours.
On both sides of the obelisk there are two nine-meter fountains - smaller copies of the fountains from St. Peter's Square in Rome. In the evenings, they are unusually beautifully illuminated. From the north, the square is flanked by buildings resembling the Louvre in architecture - the French Ministry of the Navy and the Crillon Hotel. At the corner of rue Saint-Florentin there is a mansion that once belonged to Talleyrand, where the Russian emperor Alexander I lived in 1814. On Easter, the emperor ordered an altar to be erected on the square and a thanksgiving service for ending the bloodshed should be served.
The square is also famous for the innovative painting by Degas (1876). It depicts the artist's friend Viscount Lepik crossing the square with his two daughters. The canvas got to Germany, after the fall of Berlin in 1945 - to the Hermitage, where it is now.
