Place de la Concorde: From Square of Blood to Square of Harmony

Sitting between the Tuileries Garden and the Champs-Élysées, the Place de la Concorde is known as the largest square in Paris. During the French Revolution a guillotine stood here and countless people were executed, Marie Antoinette among them. The story goes that on her way to the scaffold she accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot and said, "Pardon me, I did not do it on purpose." These words are recorded as her last. It is also said that, unlike other condemned prisoners who were laid face down, she was placed on her back so that she had to watch the blade fall toward her. If the story is true, such cruelty would reflect how bitterly she was hated at the time.

So many people lost their lives under the blade here that the square was nicknamed the "Square of Blood." Yet "concorde" means "harmony," and today the name expresses a wish to move beyond that dark past. In the middle of the square stands an obelisk brought from the Luxor Temple in Egypt, and a fountain now occupies the spot where the guillotine once stood, leaving a tourist attraction with no trace of its grim history. Pass through the square and walk on to the Champs-Élysées.