Place De La Concorde

On several of our June visits, we happened by or through the Place de la Concorde, one of Paris' most famous scenes. It's a large old square with many monuments and much history. Long story short is that Louis XV wanted a big city square like France's other cities were developing (to be named Place Louis XV, of course; with an equestrian statue of himself, etc.) and chose this spot between the proposed Madeleine church and the National Assembly and also between the Tuileries and the beginning of the (now) Champs Elysees. The Revolutionaries of the 1790s renamed it Place de la Revolution and executed Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Danton, and eventually Robespierre there. Such cooler heads as remained renamed the square Place de la Concorde, hoping to move on from the Revolution. After Napoleon, it briefly became Place Louis XVI, but another revolution came along, the 1830 one, and it became Place de la Concorde once again. And so it has remained. Also the site of some major traffic jams.

Helpful aerial view; Madeleine upper left, Tuileries right, across the
river, the National Assembly, Champs Elysees, left

The Luxor Obelisk, with the Hotel de Crillon (left) and the Hotel
de la Marine (right); next post...

Plan from the time of Louis XV

Helpfully-labeled overhead view

And now just a few shots on the ground

Hotel Crillon in the background; also the monument
to the city of Rouen

Closer up of the obelisk, a gift from Egypt in the 1830s

The Fountain of Rivers, one of two grand fountains

Closer up with obelisk

Many monumental sculptures around...this, the Horse Tamer,
by Guillame Coustou

Monument to the city of Brest, on the spot where the
guillotine stood...

The Madeleine

Paris has more than its share of beautiful and historically significant churches, Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, and more. It also has a few oddities, imitative or derivative religious structures that are huge and famous, at least among tourists, if not very French. One is the Church of the Madeleine, that is, of Mary Magdalene, Jesus' special lady friend who was popular among the Medieval French, since she was believed to have ended her days in Provence. (Somewhere in the previous posts...2019, maybe...I recounted visiting her shrine and viewing her mountain-top burial place). 

Anyhow, the Madeline, the church, as it is called, dates to the founding of the Place de la Concorde (then called the Place Louis XV), on the just-completed Rue Royale. The church was to serve as thanksgiving for the king's recovery from a serious illness, and its Greek temple exterior originated with his architects. The columns would complement those of the nearby Louvre. The Revolution and Napoleon had other ideas about what such a building could be used for (also the Place de la Concorde), but eventually it returned to being a ridiculously grandiose and out of place Greek temple/parish church. It was also considered to become Paris' first train station, but that's a different story...as well as its being considered an Expiatory for the Sin of the Revolution...that honor went to Paris' ugliest monstrosity, Montmartre. 

Interestingly, to me, the Madeleine has been a favorite among composers, musicians, and artists for their funerals—Chopin, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, to name a few. I'm still trying to imagine "La Conga Blicoti" performed in the cella of a wannabe Corinthian temple. Anyhow, the Wikipedia has its usual fine article detailing all this and ever more, and I recommend it for those seeking further information. The Christian church part, in the cella, contains much fine monumental sculpture as well as mosaics and other such, all 19th century, mostly glorifying French Christianity. BTW, the Madeleine was under wraps the last several years, and opened again just recently. For several years, we eyed it with curiosity during our visits to the wonderful Madeleine Decathlon.

[Jenny Lake campground, Grand Teton National Park, July 24th...]

View from the Place de la Concorde

If it's Tuesday we must be in Athens...

Humongous exterior sculpture program...dozens of fluted Corinthian
columns, as large as anything you'd see in the classical world, over-sized
statues of assorted saints, demi-gods, etc.

Interesting contemporary sculpture in the forecourt

Column hugger...Vicki poses for scale

Among the saints among the columns; four had their heads

blown off in an artillery bombardment by the Germans in 1918

or so, but not including, inappropriately, St. Denis

Nave, I mean cella, view

Baptism by the baptismal font

Altar, something about Mary Magdalen, half-dome about Christianity
in France

Abaft from the beam, looking at yet another famous French symphonic
organ; there's no crossing here, since it is, thankfully, not a cruciform 
Greek temple

The usual perch pose

The great organ; Saint-Saens played here, among others

Bronze door; okay, it's not the Pantheon nor the
Baptistry at Florence

Impressive, despite its youth and imitative nature, not to mention its,

um, interesting history

Grand Palais

For the 1900 Paris Exposition, among many other structures, two great halls were built: the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais. We've visited the former on numerous occasions. Its collections are world-class, and it would be a featured museum in any other city in the world. And a couple of the best exhibitions we've seen anywhere were at the Petit Palais. (Enter "Petit Palais" and "Paris 1900" in the search box). We'd never made it to the humongously-larger Grand Palais and, lo, it has been closed for renovation for at least the last umpteen years. It reopened, finally, in June, and was high on our list of must-sees. As can be seen from the outer-space view photo below, the Grand Palais is beyond humongous, and what was finally opened was just the great hall. It was impressive enough. I'll mostly let the interior pix speak for themselves. We were there June 17th.

The Petit Palais, on the right, is huge enough to get lost in; the Grand
Palais is maybe ten times larger; be impressed...

Full frontal of the Grand Palais; thanks, Wikipedia

Approaching from the Champs Elysees

General De Gaulle presiding over the scene

The architectural, sculptural, and other aesthetic aspects are pretty
overwhelming

Petit Palais across the street

More of the exterior of the Grand Palais

Now inside the Grand Palais, looking up at the crossing, as it were

Nave

So fin de siecle...

Looking down the length of the great hall

Ernesto Neto's fabric/sculpture thing; which was not the main focus
of our attention

Pano

Fabric sculpture bit

Not that far away

Neto sculpture

Moi, drumming; very briefly

Inside the Grand Palais for an exhibition, 1909; six years after Kittyhawk...
note the assembled aircraft...this kind of thing was normal for the Grand
Palais; in the next several years, it will host some of the collections from
the Pompidou, while it undergoes renovation...