What are facts about the Place de la concarde?
PLACE DE LA CONCORDE (note spelling) This great square was
originally designed by Gabriel to be a present from the people of
Paris to King Louis XV, at that time known as Louis the
Well-Beloved. He created a 21-acre octagon surrounded by a dry
moat, with a statue of the King in the centre. At intervals around
the moat were statues representing the chief towns of France, and
the centre of the square was reached by four bridges. Amusingly,
the squatters of Paris soon discovered that the pedestals of the
statues were hollow, and they moved in, hanging out washing and
growing vegetables in the moat. In 1770, however, the crowd in the
square panicked during a firework display held to celebrate the
wedding of the King's son. 133 people were crushed to death in the
moat, which had to be filled in. During the Reign of Terror the
Square's name was changed from Place Louis XV to Place de la
Révolution, and 1,343 people were guillotined there, starting with
Louis XVI. After that, the square was given its present name
(Concord means Peace and Harmony), and the bridge across the river
was built with stones taken from the demolished Bastille. In the
reign of Louis-Philippe the square was completed by an architect
named Hittorff, who added the fountains and brought from the ruined
palace of Marly the statues at the entrances of the Tuileries
gardens ('Winged Horses' by Coustou) and the Champs-Élysées
('Horse-tamers' by Coysevox). The Obelisk in the centre of the
square was a gift to the people of France from Mohammed Ali, Pasha
of Egypt. It is 3,300 years old and weighs 2,200 tons. Around the
base of the obelisk, which came from the Temple of Luxor, are
carvings representing the machines used to bring it to Paris and
set it up (Cleopatra's needle, you may remember, was both broken
and lost at sea on its way to London, so the French engineers had
something to crow about). The two vast buildings to the North of
the square are part of Gabriel's original plan. The Western one,
now the Hôtel Crillon, was originally palaces for several noblemen;
the other, now the Navy Ministry, was the royal furniture store.
The Kings, you see, had about fifty palaces and châteaux; rather
than keep them all furnished all the time, they kept the furniture
in a central store and sent it out as needed.