Champ de Mars

École Militaire

is one third down from the top of the picture.

The Champ de Mars (French pronunciation:

École Militaire to the southeast. The park is named after the Campus Martius ("Mars Field") in Rome

, which was dedicated to the god Mars. The name alludes to the fact that the lawns here were formerly used as drilling and marching grounds by the French military.

The nearest

Champ de Mars

, is also nearby.

History

Originally, the Champ de Mars was part of a large flat open area called Grenelle, which was reserved for market gardening. Citizens would claim small plots and exploit them by growing fruits, vegetables, and flowers for the local market. However, the plain of Grenelle was not an especially fertile place for farming.

The construction, in 1765, of the

École Militaire designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, was the first step toward the Champ de Mars in its present form. Grounds for military drills were originally planned for an area south of the school, the current location of the place de Fontenoy

. The choice to build an esplanade to the north of the school led to the erection of the noble facade which today encloses the Champ de Mars. The planners leveled the ground, surrounded it with a large ditch and a long avenue of elms, and, as a final touch, the esplanade was enclosed by a fine grille-work fence.

The

sixteenth arrondissements

.)

Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers launched the world's first hydrogen-filled balloon from the Champ-de-Mars on 27 August 1783.^[1]

This place witnessed the spectacle and pageantry of some of the best-remembered festivals of the

massacre on the Champ de Mars took place. Jean Sylvain Bailly

, the first mayor of Paris, became a victim of his own revolution, and was guillotined there on 12 November 1793.

The Champ de Mars was also the site of the

tree of liberty.^[3] The festival is regarded as the most successful of its type in the Revolution.^[4] During the Hundred Days a restored Napoleon held the Champ de Mai ceremony, during which he swore to uphold the Charter of 1815, at the Champ de Mars.^[5]

The Champ de Mars was the site of

1937

...

In art, culture, film and sport

Art and culture

In 2012, the United Buddy Bears exhibit was held on the Champ de Mars, an international art exhibition with more than 140 two-meter-tall bears representing individual countries. They promote peace, love, tolerance and international understanding and are displayed across the planet. They stand at Champ de Mars in Paris, fronting the Eiffel Tower.^[6]

Use in film and television

Champ de Mars was used as a filming location in the 1985

Renault 11 taxi which he had hijacked at the Eiffel Tower in pursuit of a mysterious assassin, later revealed to be May Day (Grace Jones).^[7]

Sports

Champ de Mars contains both a basketball court and a football field, and it will be the site of beach volleyball at the 2024 Summer Olympics and of five-a-side football at the 2024 Summer Paralympics.

As of March 2023, the basket at the northern end of the basketball court was damaged and hanging downward.

Gallery

Illustration of the Fête de la Fédération at Champ de Mars, July 14, 1790 (Musée de la Révolution française).
Illustration of massacre on the Champ-de-Mars, 1791.
Painting of The Festival of the Supreme Being, June 8, 1794 (by Pierre-Antoine Demachy, 1794).
Illustration of Fête de la Concorde, May 21, 1848.
Photograph of Exposition Universelle, 1867.
Panoramic view of Exposition Universelle, 1878.
View of Exposition Universelle, 1889.
Illustration of Exposition Universelle, 1900.
Champ de Mars at night (2007).
Champ de Mars – view from the
Montparnasse Tower
(2010)
The north end of Champ de Mars and Quai Branly – As viewed from the Eiffel Tower (2016)