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Gabriel's
Colonnades
To respect the perspective and not alter the
Seine frontage... |
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The
Chaillot Hill, Hill of The Etoile
In 1730 this hill was already called the "Etoile
of Chaillot"... |
The
Arc of Triumph
The search
for a monument, which would highlight the Place de
l'Etoile... |
The
Potato and the Avenue of the Grande Armée
It is on a piece of land situated at the lower
end... |
A
Stroll on the Champs-Elysées
The next time you are in Paris... |
The
Champs-Elysées
Until the
eighteenth century, the Champs-Elysées was in the
countryside... |
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 onjour! We could not resist a leisurely walk through the most beautiful sections
of the "City of Light" to promenade down the world's most elegant avenue: the Champs-Elysées.
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The Historic Road
At its origin, it was simply a very
ambitious king's will to modernize an urban landscape. King
Louis the Fourteenth believed that France, the first nation of
the Occident, required in its capital city a "Grand Course" so
to speak, so he ordered a straight line drawn between the
Louvre and the Castle of St-Germain. Until the reign of Louis
Sixteenth, the limits of this road would stop at the Chaillot
Hill (known today as Place de l'Etoile). In our day, this
unique passage known as the "Historic Road", is 12 kilometers
in length, leaving the Louvre, passing through the Tuileries
Gardens, up the Champs-Elysées to the Place de l'Etoile (where
the Arc of Triumph stands), then encompassing the Grande Armée
Avenue and Neuilly Avenue, finally culminating at the
magnificent "Grande Arche de la Défense". This grand road has
served in the past, and still serves as the background for
many of the main events in the city of Paris.
Place de la Concorde
With a total surface of about 880,000
square feet, the Place de la Concorde is the largest and
probably the most famous square in Paris. The construction of
this octogonal square, on which would be placed an equestrian
statue of King Louis the Fifteenth, began in 1748. At that
time, the goal was to embellish what was nothing but a large
empty terrain, which divided the Tuileries Gardens from the
Champs-Elysées. Finished in 1763, the famous square was the
setting of many tragedies. In 1770, when it was still called
"La Place Louis Fifteenth" a fireworks display in honor of the
marriage of Marie-Antoinette to Dauphin (future King Louis
Sixteenth), erupted into an uncontrolled blaze that cost the
lives of more than one hundred spectators. A few years later,
when the square was referred to as "La Place de la
Révolution", it was used as an execution site. A guillotine
replaced its royal statue and more than one thousand people
were killed. Executed there were Louis Sixteenth and
Marie-Antoinette, both in 1793, and also Danton and
Robespierre, noted revolutionaries and victims of their own
fanaticism. Re-baptized "Place de la Concorde" under the
Directory of Louis-Philippe, the Luxor obelisk was erected in
1836. Louis Philippe had received the 3300-year-old, 23-meter
tall, 230-ton monument from the Pasha of Egypt Mehemet-Ali. It
took no less than 4 years for the transport of this column
from Egypt to Paris!
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| Gabriel's
Colonnades |
To respect
the perspective and not alter the Seine frontage, it was
decided that only the North part of the square, which is
now referred to as "La Place de la Concorde", would be
closed off by any architecture. The Architect Gabriel
was commissioned to design and erect twin palaces, with
a fine colonnade adjoining them. Today the twin palaces
hold the Hôtel de Crillon and the Hôtel de la Marine. It
was in the Hôtel de Crillon that the Treaty of
Friendship and Trade between the King of France and the
13 Independent States of America was signed in 1778.
Benjamin Franklin was among the
signatories.
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| The
Champs-Elysées |
Until the eighteenth century, the
Champs-Elysées was in the countryside, in a swampy and
brambly region. The adjacent streets were but obscure
alleyways where garden sheds and dance halls neighbored
each other. Developing a promenade and planting elms in
the midst of fields and swamps was the simple mission
given to the famous landscaper Andre le Nôtre, in 1667,
by Louis the Fourteenth. Le Nôtre, who was also the
mastermind of the vast and varied Versailles gardens,
created a road aligned with the Tuileries Gardens, which
he had also designed, in order to extend its perspective
and embellish it, all the way to what is now known as
the Rond-Point of the Champs-Elysées. In 1710, the Duke
D'Antin had a bridge built to allow the prolongation of
the avenue to the Chaillot Hill (now known as the Place
de l'Etoile). This hill being quite steep, the Marquis
of Marigny began work to landscape the area in 1774,
which reduced it by five meters. He also had the avenue
widened all the way to the Porte Maillot and the Neuilly
Bridge. The Champs-Elysées only began to take on its
current grand form in 1828, when sidewalks and side
roads were built, and more than one thousand gas
candelabras were installed. Then followed public
establishments such as cafés, restaurants, concert halls
and theatres.
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 The Chaillot Hill, Hill of the
Etoile |
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In 1730 this hill was already
called the "Etoile of Chaillot" because of the few
primitive streets that crossed it in the shape of a
star. In 1854, five roads were installed: the road from
Paris to Neuilly (the actual Avenue des Champs-Elysées
and the Avenue de la Grande Armée), the Chemins de Ronde
(now the Avenues Kléber and Wagram) and finally the
Avenue de l'Impératrice (our current Avenue Foch). Three
years later, seven more avenues were added resulting in
a total of twelve avenues that converge in a rigorously
geometric fashion towards the Arc of Triumph. In the
spirit of symmetry and balance that was building in
Paris, twelve private hotels, with perfectly
proportioned architecture were built between these
roads. The architect Hittorff thought the facades of
these buildings should not be too imposing so as not to
detract from the Arc of Triumph, so he made them bland
and understated. This did not please the Baron Hausmann
who thought these buildings so ugly he planted trees in
front to hide them! |
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| The
Arc of Triumph |
| The search for a monument,
which would highlight the Place de l'Etoile, began in
Louis Fifteenth's era. Wild ideas were expressed. One of
these was even the construction of a giant elephant with
a ballroom and theatre! It was Napoleon who, in 1806,
decided to construct an Arc in honor of all his
victories. The construction was long and controversial
however. It required almost 2 years to build the
foundations, which were 8 meters deep, because the soil
would not support such a structure. The Arc of Triumph
is 50 meters high, 45 meters wide and weighs 550 tons.
It was finished in 1836 and inaugurated by
Louis-Philippe. Most of the sculptures that adorn the
monument represent the various Napoleonic victories. The
most famous is probably the one that evokes "the leaving
of the Volunteers" also called "the Marseillaise". It
represents the Nation leading its citizens to battle to
defend their freedom. The names of hundreds of generals
are also engraved on the interior walls. This list
caused much anger because many generals were forgotten,
one of which was Victor Hugo's father. The Arc is also
the site of the grave of the Unknown Soldier. In January
1921, an anonymous soldier was interred under the
monument in as the symbol of the sacrifice of 1 400 000
soldiers during WW1. The Flame of Remembrance from the
First World War is rekindled every day with a ceremony
and has been burning days and night since 1923. |
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| The Potato and the Avenue de la Grande
Armée |
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It is on a piece of land situated at the
lower end of the Avenue of the Grande Armée that a
certain Mr. Parmentier, pharmacist in the Army, who had
been a prisoner in Virginia while participating in the
American Independence War, chose to experiment with the
first potato planting in France; (potatoes were
previously unknown to the French.) His first harvest was
presented to Louis the Sixteenth and Marie-Antoinette in
1786. Impressed, the King placed a potato bud in his
boutonniere and ordered that he be served potatoes every
day. Very quickly his courtesans followed suit, but it
was not until 1840 that the potato arrived on the plate
of the average French citizen. Mr. Parmentier was a
precursor during the Century of Enlightment as far as
health was concerned. He advocated early his conviction
that better health depended on better nutrition. Having
been unable to find efficient ways to conserve meat and
milk products, he is one of the first to have thought of
refrigeration as a means of conservation. He is also the
one who legally imposed the vaccination of smallpox in
France, which officially ended in 1973. |
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| A Stroll on the Champs-Elysées |
| The next time you are in Paris, or
even glancing at a photograph of the magnificent avenues
all glittering in holiday lights, try to imagine that
the quintessential "grand avenue" of Paris - the
Champs-Elysées so alive with lights, shops, nightclubs
and traffic- could once have been considered the
countryside in the 18th and first part of 19th century.
It is said that Stendhal lived in an apartment on the
fourth floor of a building that opened onto the
Champs-Elysées because he was: "looking for the peace
and the solitude of the countryside, in the only area in
which it exists in France!" And, the Countess d'Armaille
wrote in her memoirs: " In the Champs-Elysées the
countryside was near us; as soon as we crossed the
barrier of the Etoile, the small roads of the Avenue of
Saint-Cloud and Ternes announced the fields. At the
Porte Maillot, you felt you were on a trip." |
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