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Place Vendôme

Place Vendôme is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Ste Marie Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix .

The Place was originally laid out as a monument to the glory of the armies of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque and called Place des Conquetes, to be renamed Place Louis le Grand, when an equestrian statue of the king was set up in its center. Napoleon erected the column, which was made out of cannon taken from all the armies of Europe, according to his propaganda. After the Restoration the statue of the Emperor was pulled from the top of the column and refinished as a statue of Henri IV, which can be inspected on the Pont Neuf. A replacement statue of Napoleon, however, was erected by Louis-Philippe, and a better one by Louis-Napoleon. The column was pulled down by the Communards in 1870 and set up again in the early days of the Third Republic., and there it remains

The Place Vendome has been famous for its fashionable and deluxe hotels: The Ritz , which is the Ritz, the Bristol, which Edward VII preferred.




Place Vendôme is also the title of a 1998 movie starring Catherine Deneuve.


Last updated: 10-24-2004 05:10:45