FRENCH REVOLUTION SIGHTS

Place de la Concorde, in which the guillotine was set up

To your right as you emerge from the Rue Royale you will see, at the exact midpoint of the square, the beginning of the Champs-Elysees, with its two more than lifesized Numidian horses, in white marble, rearing up into the tree tops on each side of it. On the opposite side of the square you will see the entrance to the Gardens of the Tuileries, which is similarly framed by the two socalled "Winged Horses," high up on their pedestals, of which the one on the right carries "Mercury" and the other "Renown." In addition to these magnificent sculptured groups, there are eight other huge groups of seated figures on high pedestals around the circumference of the square. These represent the principal cities of France: Lille, Strasbourg, Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Brest and Rouen. Looking straight ahead of you a considerable distance will be added to the vastness of this view first by the unusually broad Pont de la Concorde, which crosses the Seine at the far end of the square, and then by the Quai d'Orsay at the other end of this bridge. Only then will your view be arrested by the facade of the Palais-Bourbon I mentioned to you yesterday. And now, there are only two more surprises in store for you, or rather three. The first one is that after you have reached the center of the square and look up the Champs-Elysees, you will obtain your first view of Napoleon's Arch of Triumph at the very end of it. The second one has to do with the two Gabriel palaces, which close off the northern end of the square, but about these I will tell you something after we have looked at surprise number three. Surprise number three is the view of the Place de la Concorde you will have after you have reached the Palais-Bourbon on the other side of the Seine. If you will then stand with your back to this palace and look across the Seine, you will have an unobstructed view of the entire square, the two Gabriel palaces, and the Madeleine Church closing the gap between them. And if you will look still farther, you can also see the Basilica de Sacre-Coeur on top of the Montmartre Hill this time bell tower and all. If you will look to your left you can follow the Champs-Eylsees by its tree tops, and a little ways up the avenue you can see the roofs of the Grand and the Petit Palaces rising above them. When you look to your right you will see the Gardens of the Tuileries, and still farther to your right, the beginning of the Louvre. The entire view, which extends over an arc of about one hundred eighty degrees, will let your eye roam over an area of at least three-quarters of a mile in all directions, with not a discordant object, building, tree, hotdog stand, billboard or anything else to mar it. And all this, mind you, not somewhere miles out in the country, but in the very heart of modern Paris. As I already mentioned when we entered this square, we entered it between two identical palaces, which you may not have noticed because they were at our back, but which form an essential part of this square. These palaces were started by the architect Gabriel in 1760 during the reign of Louis XV, or about twenty-eight years after the Rue Royale was built, and it was this same Gabriel who laid out the square. The facade of each of these palaces is three hundred eleven feet long and they are today considered to be two of the finest examples of French Renaissance style. The palace on the right now houses the Admiralty, and the one on the left the Hotel Crillon, one of the most expensive hotels in Paris, the French Automobile Club and a bank. Perhaps I also ought to mention that the building surrounded by the high iron fence, with a United States Marine at its entrance, to the left of the Hotel Crillon, is the United States Embassy.And now, in accordance with my usual custom of telling you a little bit of history in these articles, let me tell you a little about the history of this square, for this, too, surely could not have been built in just a few years. When Gabriel started to build the Place de la Concorde, which, incidentally was not completed until 1772, the Champs-Elysees was already there. However, in those days it did not run into a square, but directly into the end of the Tuileries Gardens. The idea of building a square on this site really came about through the desire of the people to erect a statue to their king. For some years, Louis XV, who was also known as "Louis the WellBeloved," had been involved in the Wars of the Austrian Succession, which was really a war between Prussia and Austria over possession of Silesia. When this war ended, the people of Paris, either because they had become tired of this war or out of some genuine affection for their monarch, wanted to erect a statue to him to show their appreciation for his accomplishments; and, as what is now the Place de la Concorde was right next to the King's private gardens, that seemed like an appropriate place for it. This statue, which was deisgned by Bouchardon, showed the king on horseback in the garb of a conquering Roman Emperor, and was placed in the very center of the square in approximately the position where the obelisk of Luxor now stands. At the same time the square was christened Place Louis XV. Actually, of course, Louis didn't conquer anything during this war. Frederick the Great Unser Fritz obtained Silesia, and France was left no better off than she had been before. Strange to say, when this square was first built, the entire square was surrounded by a deep moat with eight massive sentry boxexs spaced at intervals. This might seem a little unusual, but them you must not forget that this area adjoined the King's private gardens and that in those days kings took no chances. During the reign of Napoleon III, these moats were filled in, but the sentry boxes and parts of the balustrades which surrounded the moats were left standing. Believe it or not, but these very sentry boxes are today the pedestals of the eight huge figures representing the principal cities of France. These "sentry boxes," by the way, are so placed that, with the balustrade which connected them along the edges of the moats, they formed the limits of the original square, so that the Place de la Concorde was originally octagonal. So much, then, for the evolution of the Place de la Concorde. Unfortunately, Louis the Well-Beloved did not remain well-beloved forever. The high living at the court, together with the political influence the shrewd Madame Du Barry exerted on him, soon brought him into disfavor with the populace. In accordance with the usual custom of assigning non-existent virtues to royalty, the base of his statue had been ornamented with bronze figures representing Strength, Prudence, Justice and Peace, the very virtues which Louis seemed to have been lacking. These representations had quickly given rise to a little ditty among the Parisians of his day to the effect that all the virtues were at the base and all the vices were mounted. When Louis XV died on May 10, 1773, he was despised by everybody, and when the French Revolution broke out fifteen years later, his statue was toppled from its pedestal and cast into cannons. Fortunately a small replica of it had been cast some time before and placed in the Louvre, and if you are interested enough you can see it there in the Salle Houdon. Shortly after this statue had been torn down, a clay model of a seated Liberty was placed on this square and the square was renamed Place de la Revolution. It was to this clay model that Madame Roland addressed the famous words, "Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name," as she calmly stood on the guillotine awaiting her turn to be executed. After the Reign of Terror the square was renamed once more to the more hopeful name Place de la Concorde, a name by which it has been known ever since. To the historically-minded tourist the Place de la Concorde will, of course, always recall its association with the French Revolution, for it was on this square that the guillotine was set up. When it was set up for the first time-it was moved around now and then it stood very near to the spot where the statue of Brest now stands, and it was on this spot that Louis XVI was guillotined on the Sunday morning of January 21, 1793, as the chronicler recorded it, "at 10:22 precis," twenty-four hours after he had been condemned. However, I do not intend to spoil this account by giving you a detailed list of all the innocent victims who lost their lives on this squareeven if that were possible. Those were fearful, fearful times, during which each new faction invariably exterminated anyone it suspected of being opposed to it; and that is what Carlyle meant when he wrote in his French Revolution that "Sans-culottism thrives on what all other things die of." In his History of France Guizot tells us that during the last forty-nine days of the Terror alone, two thousand two hundred eighty-five people lost their lives on the guillotine. During the entire period of the Terror, which lasted from March, 1793, to July, 1794, some four thousand victims are believed to have perished on the scaffold,and of these nine hundred are said to have been women. However, not all of these victims were executed on the Place de 'la Concorde, for the guillotine was also set up in other parts of Paris. It sometimes performed its chore on the Champ-de-Mars, on the Place da la Bastille, and on what was then called the Place du Trone, but is now called the Place de la Nation, and it was there that the Poet Andre Chenier lost his life, on July 20, 1794, the tragic victim of mistaken identity. Eight days later Robeshierre was executed-on the Place de la Concorde, this time-and that was also the end of the Terror. But this will be all I shall want to tell you about these terrible times. Perhaps I will tell you a little more about some of the other prominent people who died on this square when I take you to the Parc Monceau and we will stop briefly at the Chapel le_Expiatoire, where they were buried.

The chief claim to fame of the Conciergerie-if fame it can be called-is, of course, the fact that it served as a prison during the French Revolution and is, therefore, more closely associated with these turbulent times than any other building in Paris. It obtains its name from the fact that it was that part of the early French King's Palace, in which the master of the King's household, that is to say, the Concierge, had his quarters. The Conciergerie part of the palace is the side facing the Pont au-Change, and can be identified readily by the three sinister-looking round towers which look like salt and pepper shakers. However, this entire huge group of buildings, which here extend from one side of the island clear across the other, has been added to, rebuilt, and modified so many times since the Romans established their first administrative center here that nobody can tell today just when certain parts were built. As we follow the Palace of justice around to our left, the first of these towers, at the very corner of the building, is called the Tour Banbec and was built by Saint Louis (1226-1270). It has a rather sinister history because it was at one time used as a torture chamber; the second is called the Tour d'Argent from the fact that it was in this tower that Saint Louis kept the Royal Treasure; and the third is called the Tour de Cesar because it is believed to stand on the site formerly occupied by a tower built by the Romans. However, none of these towers is open to the public. There is still another tower, but a square one this time, at the Boulevard du Palais end of the building. This tower is known as the Tour d'Horloge and is said to have been built by Philippe le Bel (1285-1314), but the very ornamental clock on it, which happens to be the first public clock in Paris, was not added until 1334. It is from this tower that the Quai d'Horloge, along which we have all this time been walking, derives its name. The entrance to that part of the Conciergerie which is open to the public is through a narrow archway a little past the Tour de Cesar. When you step through this archway, you will first come into a little court, and from there a few steps down will take you into the so-called guard room, or the Salle des Gardes. Originally, the floor of this guard room was on a level with the ground outside, but when the quais were built, it, and the rest of the first floors of the Conciergerie, became a sort of sub-basement. If you are on your own, this is where you will purchase your tickets for the locally conducted tours, which start out in groups of twenty or twenty-five about .every twenty minutes. This is also the place where you purchase your souvenirs. If you are on a group tour, your American Express Company guide will purchase your ticket for you, and you start at once. When you leave the Salle des Gardes, the first part of the former prison you will come to will be the so-called Rue de Paris, which is, in reality, nothing more than a raised passage at the end of a huge hall, known as the Salle des Gens d'Armes, and separated from it by an iron grating. This corridor obtains its name from the public executor, Sanson, whom the Parisians had nicknamed Monsieur de Paris, and who used to walk up and down here while waiting for the victims to be selected for his .day's work. During the days of the early French Kings, the Salle des Gens d'Armes was the refectory of the King's household. This hall, which is said to be the largest single room in Paris, is two hundred twenty-six feet long, eighty-nine feet wide and twenty-six feet high. At one time it must have been a very well lit hall, for in addition to the four large windows at its far end, it also had windows along the side which faces the Cour du Mai. But when the palace was enlarged, it was left with only the four windows at its end. It was in this room that the prisoners who could not afford to pay for anything better, sometimes two thousand at a time, were kept, bedded on straw, before they went before their "judges" and thence to the guillotine. At the far end of the hall, but on a higher level, are the so-called kitchens of Saint Louis, with four huge fireplaces in each of the four ,corners. These kitchens, we are told, could feed as many as three thousand people at one time, but if this sounds-. fantastic, you must not forget that in those days the "solid" part of a meal consisted almost exclusively of meats roasted on spits. Immediately above this hall is the famous Salle des Pas-Perdus, which means the Hall of the Lost Footsteps, where the prisoners were tried. This hall is still used as the law courts of Paris. It is open to the public and can be reached by the broad stairway which leads up to it from the Cour de Mai. However, I am not going to take you into it. At the end of the Rue de Paris there is another narrow passage through which one steps into the Gallerie des Prisonniers through which the condemned were led to the Cour du Mai to be loaded into the waiting tumbrils. Before the women prisoners were sent out of this gallery, with their hands already tied behind their back„ they stopped at a little cubby-hole at the end of the passage to have their hair cut off. And once you reached this point, you knew that there was no longer any hope for you. Just outside this gallery there is a small, completely enclosed court, known as the Cour des Femmes where the women prisoners were allowed to get a little fresh air now and then, and adjacent to it, but separated by an iron fence, is the Cote de.s Douze which, as the name implies, might have held a dozen men prisoners, for the same purpose. On the right-hand end of this gallery is the so-called Chapelle des Girondins, where the twenty-two Girondists were kept prior to their trial, but which was also the cell in which Marie-Antoinette and many other prominentr prisoners awaited their turn on the scaffold. This cell,. has, however, been considerably modified since that time,, and was not originally a chapel at all. One could probably obtain a better picture of what it originally looked like in the scene at the Grevin Museum which shows the Queen in her cell. The designers of these scenes seem to have gone to great lengths to reproduce their scenes with fidelity, for in the scene showing Charlotte Corday and Marat they even have the original bath tub in which he was murdered. In the cell adjacent to this chapel you will find a number of the pitiably few personal effects Marie-Antoilrette was allowed to keep during her imprisonment. Also a knife from the guillotine as well as one of the wooden steps that led up to it. But for all such minutia I would rather that you consult your guide books. Of all the prisoners who were imprisoned in the Cou,ciergerie, Marie-Antoinette probably stayed here the longest. She was brought here from the Temple Prison at three A.M. on August 2, 1%93, or a little more than six months after the King had been executed. Only don't ask me why these people always had to choose such ungodly hours. However, she was not tried until the following October. Her trial started at eight A.M. on Monday morning, October 14, and lasted until four A.M. Wednesday morning with but an hour's interrnission each day. She was executed the same day sentence was pronounced. She was only thirty-eight when she was guillotined and had been Queen of France for nineteen years. If you ever make this tour with a woman guide, you might find her opinicxi of Marie-Antoinette to be a little on the ,cool side-men I have found to be more sympathetic. However, if you are one of those tourists who like to contradict a guide in front of all the other tourists, which 1 am sure you are not, you might remind her just the same that whatever Marie-Antoinette's shortcomings might have been, the morals of the French Court in those days were not exactly the kind you would want to write to your Aunt Annabelle about. Nevertheless, Marie-Antoinette was not liked by the French. First of all, the people did not like the idea that she was an Austrian Princess, though they seemed to have had no objection when Napoleon I married Marie Louise, who was also an Austrian Princess, and was, in fact, a niece of Marie-Antoinette's. But that only shows you how fickle people can sometimes be. And second, her very arrival in Paris was marked by a horrible accident. During a public celebration of her wedding on the Place de la Concorde, then of course still known as the Place Louis XV, some fireworks exploded and caused a panic during which one hundred three people lost their lives. and hundreds more were wounded, and for this calamity the poor girl was held responsible ever after. Then too, Madame Du Barry, who was Louis XV's mistress, had taken a violent dislike to her almost from the day of her arrival. If this sounds a little confusing, you must not forget that when Marie-Antoinette was married to the Dauphin, she was only a Princess. She did not become Queen of France until Louis XVI became King upon the death of his father four years later. To all this, of course, must also be added her extreme love of pleasure, a fact which may, perhaps, be more easily understood when we consider that she was introduced to this, what certainly could not have been a moral court, at the age of only fifteen. Nevertheless, all accounts are agreed that she conducted herself with great courage and dignity, both during her trial and on that last sad journey to the scaffold. And if one studies the history of those sad times, the same can also be said of Madame Roland, Madame Elizabeth, and Charlotte Corday, who went to her death with a smile. But these, of course, are still only the women. After the Public Prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville had made up his list of people who were to be executed the next day, usually in groups of twenty and even forty at a time, the prisoners were led out through a little passage which opened onto the Cour du Mai, and loaded into tumbrils. These then lumbered over the Pont-au-Change, then left for a short distance down the Quai de la Megisserie, then right along the short Rue de la Monnaie and the Rue du Roule, and then left again down the long stretch of the Rue St. Honore. A little ways past the Church of Saint Roch they would then turn off toward the Place de la Concorde. As you may have read in some of your guide books, it was in front of this church that a woman spat on the Queen. In any case, this journey could not have been a pleasant one. It was in front of this church also that a young artillery officer by the name of Buonaparte put an end to this fratricidal strife on October 5, 1795, by ordering his can noniers to pepper the rabble with the now famous " whiff of grapeshot," and if you will look closely, you can still see the marks left on the walls of this church by this shot. And now, we are going, to go out the way we came in, walk around the corner of the Tour de l'Hor-lodge, and then a few steps down the Boulevard du Palais to that gem of Gothic architecture-Sainte Chapelle.

La Madeleine, a church which is built upon the site of a temporary graveyard for guillotine victims, including the king and queen.

Rue St Honore, the route prisoners took to their execution

The Colonne de Juillet dominates La Place de la Bastille. It marks the site of the prison known as the Bastille which was stormed by the Mob in 1789 at the start of the French Revolution. In the subway station beneath the square, stones from the Bastille's foundation can still be seen. This square is also home to the Opéra Bastille completed in 1990.