Place de la Concorde

The 3300-year-old pink granite obelisk with the gilded top in the middle of Place de la Concorde once stood in the Temple of Ramses at Thebes (today’s Luxor) and was given to France in 1831 by Muhammad Ali, viceroy and pasha of Egypt. The female statues adorning the four corners of the square represent France’s eight largest cities.

In 1793 Louis XVI’s head was lopped off by a guillotine set up in the northwest corner of the square, near the statue representing Brest. During the next two years, a guillotine built near the entrance to the Jardin des Tuileries was used to behead 1343 more people, including Marie-Antoinette and, six months later, the Revolutionary leaders Danton and Robespierre. The square, laid out between 1755 and 1775, was given its present name after the Reign of Terror in the hope that it would be a place of peace and harmony.