Place
Vendôme
Place Vendôme - Metro :
Opéra
Symbol of high luxury, home to the
greatest jewelers (Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier,
Chaumet), the Place Vendôme is probably Paris’ most expensive
place. It is situated in the continuation of the rue de la Paix, facing
the west entrance to the Tuilerie Gardens. Like other prestigious
places such as the Place de la Concorde, the Place Vendôme
originally held an equestrian statue of a King, Louis XIV. To clear
sufficient space for this imposing place planners had to pull down
several buildings, amongst them the Cupucines Convent, remembered in
the form of an adjacent street that today bears its name, la rue
Capucines. The royal and majestic architecture of this place is the
work of Jules-Hardouin Mansart, architect of Versailles, work that was
somewhat sullied during the French Revolution, revolutionaries choosing
the symbolic location to display on stakes the heads of those
unfortunate to have attracted their wrath. This gruesome event
lead to the place being nicknamed the Place of Stakes for some time
following. Facing the prestigious luxury hotel the Ritz is located the
apartment in which Frédéric Chopin died, now the first
floor of the jeweler Chaumet. Located in the centre of the place, where
once stood the status of the Sun King, Louis XIV, destroyed during the
revolution, now stands the Vendôme Column, inspired by the Trajan
Column of Rome. Dedicated to the victorious campaigns of Napoleon’s
army in Germany, it was constructed using the bronze from the 1200
cannons captured after the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. Originally,
the column was crowned with a statue of Napoleon, but this was replaced
by the royal symbol, the fleur de lys, by the Bourbons following the
defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Pulled down during the Paris Commune,
responsibility for the reconstruction and restoration was placed on the
head of the anarchist painter Gustave Courbet, himself one of those
responsible for the provocative act.
