Place of Concorde, bloody birth, grand and central place of Paris
Place de la Concorde is located just a few hundred meters from the Louvre (To visit, click on "Book Louvre"), at the bottom of the Champs-Élysées avenue and borders the Tuileries Garden. Today, it is distinguished by the Luxor Obelisk at its center, over 3,300 years old (13th century BCE) and erected in 1836 on Place de la Concorde – See our article "The Luxor Obelisk, Place de la Concorde: A Gift from Egypt." The prestigious hotels that line it, as well as the two monumental fountains (Fountain of the Seas and Fountain of the Rivers), add to its grandeur. Created in 1772, Place de la Concorde was first known as one of the execution sites of the French Revolution. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (among others) were guillotined here. Architects: Ange-Jacques Gabriel and Edme Bouchardon (original sculptor of the equestrian statue of Louis XV).
Place de la Concorde: An exceptional place in Paris
Covering 8.64 hectares, Place de la Concorde is Paris’s largest square. Its current name was supposedly given to it by the Directory, which governed during the First French Republic from 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire Year IV) to 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire Year VIII). The choice was meant to symbolise reconciliation after the excesses of the Terror. It was between 1836 and 1846 that architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorf shaped the square into the form we know today. Located near the heart of Paris, Place de la Concorde occupies a prime spot, marking the endpoints of two grand axes:
North–south axis running through Montmartre, the department stores of Boulevard Haussmann, the Madeleine Church, the Pont de la Concorde and the National Assembly.
West–east axis running through La Défense’s Grande Arche, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre Museum.
The beginning, a painful story, linked to the future Louis XVI
In the 18th century, this was nothing more than an esplanade surrounded by a moat and two large open sewers. Gabriel, the architect and director of the Academy as First Architect to the King, was tasked with designing a project that would draw on the best ideas from the competing submissions. The plan was approved in 1755, and the statue of Louis XV was inaugurated on 20 June 1763. On 30 May 1770, the square became the scene of a tragedy: during a fireworks display in honour of the marriage of the Dauphin (the future Louis XVI) and Archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria, 133 people died, trampled or suffocated in a panic caused by a fire ignited by a rocket that had fallen to the ground. It was not until 1772 that Place Louis XV (later Place de la Concorde) was completed. An octagonal enclosure, fitted with a balustrade, bordered by 20-metre-wide moats and surrounded by sentry boxes, was laid out to define this space. Only the northern part of the square was built, offering an unobstructed view of the Seine.
The Revolution, a grim memory
On 11 July 1789, the crowd looted the weapons stored in the Garde-Meuble (located in the north-eastern building) to “go to the Bastille” – now the Hôtel de la Marine.
On October 6, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and the dauphin (the future Louis XVII, who would never reign) were brought from Versailles to Paris by the people and made their grand entrance at the Tuileries Palace (destroyed on May 23, 1871, by other revolutionaries: the Communards!) as they crossed Place Louis-XV. The square was renamed "Place de la Révolution." The guillotine was temporarily installed there in October 1792. On January 21, Louis XVI was executed there. After being dismantled, the guillotine was set up again on Place de la Concorde from May 11, 1793, to June 9, 1794. Of the 2,498 people guillotined in Paris during the Revolution, 1,119 were executed at Place de la Révolution. Alongside Louis XVI, the square saw the executions of Queen Marie-Antoinette (October 16, 1793), Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, the Girondins, Philippe d’Orléans, Madame Du Barry (the last favorite of King Louis XV of France), Danton, Malesherbes, and chemist Lavoisier… The guillotine, moved to Place du Trône-renversé (now Place de la Nation), returned to Place de la Révolution for the execution of Maximilien de Robespierre and his supporters (10 Thermidor, Year II – July 28, 1794), who sent thousands to their deaths.
The 19th century and the Place de la Concorde
Louis XVIII (who died in 1824) had planned to erect a monument at the center of the square in memory of his brother Louis XVI, guillotined during the Revolution. The 1830 revolution led to the abandonment of this project. In 1831, the Viceroy of Egypt, Méhémet Ali, offered France the two obelisks that had marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple in Thebes. Only the first was transported to France, arriving in Paris on 21 December 1833 and erected on 25 October 1836 in the Place de la Concorde. Between 1836 and 1846, architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorff transformed the square while preserving the layout conceived by Gabriel. He added two monumental fountains (notable for their bold use of cast iron) on either side of the Luxor Obelisk and framed the square with street lamps and rostral columns. These rostral columns feature ship prows, also evoking the emblem of the City of Paris. Allegorical statues representing eight French cities define the octagon imagined by Gabriel. In 1854, the moats, preserved by Hittorff, were filled in to better adapt the square to traffic.
Architecture surrounding the Place de la Concorde
To the north (facing the Rue Royale), two vast identical stone buildings close off the perspective. Separated by the Rue Royale, these structures are among the finest examples of 18th-century architecture. Their façades were designed by Gabriel and built between 1766 and 1775.
The building located to the west of Rue Royale was initially intended to house the “new Mint,” construction of which had been planned since 1768. However, this location was deemed too far from the business district. The land behind the western colonnade was then divided into four lots sold to private owners. One of these hotels, at the corner of Rue Boissy-d’Anglas, was purchased in 1907 by the Société des Grands Magasins du Louvre and transformed into the luxury Hôtel de Crillon.
To the northeast, on Rue Saint-Florentin, the Hôtel de Talleyrand or Hôtel de Saint-Florentin now houses the U.S. Embassy. To the northwest of the square, on Rue Boissy-d’Anglas, stood until 1775 the Dépôt des marbres de la Couronne, later the Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière, similar to the Hôtel de Saint-Florentin but disfigured by successive additions. It was destroyed and replaced by a neoclassical pastiche built between 1931 and 1933 to house the United States Embassy. This building, which harmonizes perfectly with the Hôtel de Talleyrand, restores the symmetry on the north side of the square as Gabriel had originally designed it. It is worth noting that the buildings on Place de la Concorde retain the oldest street numbering in Paris. They were established in 1805, in accordance with the decree of February 4, 1805, by which Prefect Frochot introduced street numbers within Paris. The statues of Place de la Concorde The Marly Horses by Guillaume Coustou, which once adorned the watering trough of the Château de Marly (about 30 km from Paris), were installed at the entrance to the Champs-Élysées in 1795. At each corner of the octagonal square stands a statue representing a French city: Brest, Rouen, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, and Strasbourg. It is said that the model for the Strasbourg statue was Juliette Drouet, who was the sculptor James Pradier’s mistress before becoming Victor Hugo’s. The Strasbourg statue was long draped in black crepe and flowers as a sign of mourning for Alsace-Lorraine, annexed by the German Empire in 1871. The monumental fountains of Place de la Concorde Between 1836 and 1846, Place de la Concorde underwent its final major transformation under the direction of architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorff. The two fountains on Place de la Concorde, flanking the obelisk, are indeed the work of this architect: the Fountain of the Seas, located to the south (toward the Seine), and the Fountain of the Rivers, to the north (toward Rue Royale).
At the time of their creation—and still today—the construction of these fountains was a true feat. We’ve dedicated a special article to them, which you can read by clicking on “Fontaines de la place de la Concorde, compagnes inséparables de l’Obélisque.”
To reach the base of the obelisk at the center of Place de la Concorde, be sure to use the pedestrian crossings!