Place Vendôme
The Place Vendôme (French pronunciation:
History
The Place Vendôme was begun in 1698 as a monument to the glory of the armies of
The site of the square was formerly the
The Foire Saint-Ovide settled in 1764 on the Place until 1771.
When France
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View to the north with the Couvent des Capucines in the background and Montmartre in the distance
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View to the west with the domed Church of the Daughters of the Assumption visible on the south side of the Rue Saint-Honoré
The Vendôme Column
Creation
The original column was started in 1806 at
In 1816, taking advantage of the Allied occupying force, a mob of men and horses had attached a cable to the neck of the statue of Napoleon atop the column, but it had refused to budge – one woman quipped: "If the Emperor is as solid on his throne as this statue is on its column, he's nowhere near descending the throne".[
Demolition during the Paris Commune
Regardless of the political assessment of Karl Marx's theory, one thing is certain: he predicted the collapse of the Vendôme Column long before it happened. This prediction was given by him in the political pamphlet Le 18 Brumaire de Louis Bonaparte of 1852. This pamphlet, sharply critical of the political figure of Napoleon III, ends with the words: "But if the Imperial mantle finally falls on the shoulders of Louis Bonaparte, the bronze statue of Napoleon will fall from the height of the Vendôme Column".[9]
During the events in the run-up to the founding of the Commune, the 22 of March 1871 saw disturbances outside the National Guard when demonstrators holding banners declaring them to be "Friends of Peace" were blocked from entering the Place Vendôme by guardsmen who, after being fired on, opened fire on the crowd. At least 12 people were killed and many wounded.[10]
During the Paris Commune in 1871, the painter Gustave Courbet, president of the Federation of Artists and elected member of the Commune,[11] who had previously expressed his dismay that this monument to war was located on the Rue de la Paix, proposed that the column be disassembled and preserved at the Hôtel des Invalides. Courbet argued that:
In as much as the Vendôme Column is a monument devoid of all artistic value, tending to perpetuate by its expression the ideas of war and conquest of the past imperial dynasty, which are reproved by a republican nation's sentiment, citizen Courbet expresses the wish that the National Defense government will authorise him to disassemble this column.[12]
His project as proposed was not adopted, though on 12 April 1871 legislation was passed authorizing the dismantling of the imperial symbol. When the column was taken down on 16 May its bronze plates were preserved. After employing a series of ropes and quarry workers, observers saw that the statue...
...fell over on the heap of sand prepared for it, with a mighty crash. There was no concussion on the ground, the column broke up almost before it reached its bed, and lay on the ground, a huge mass of ruin. An immense dust and smoke from the stones and crumpled clay rose up and an instant after a crowd of men, National Guards, Communards, and a sight-seeing Englishman flew upon it, and commenced to get bits of it as remembrance, but the excitement was so intense that people moved about as in a dream.[13]
Immediately following the destruction of the column and in repudiation of its perceived glorification of national chauvinism and bellicosity, the Place Vendôme was renamed the Place Internationale in celebration of the Communards' promotion of international fraternity.[14]
After the Paris Commune
After the suppression of the Paris Commune by Adolphe Thiers, the decision was made to rebuild the column with the statue of Napoléon restored at its apex. For his role in the Commune, Courbet was condemned to pay the costs of rebuilding the monument, estimated at 323,000 francs, in yearly installments of 10,000 francs. Unable to pay, Courbet went into self-imposed exile in Switzerland, the French government seized and sold the artist's paintings for a minor amount, and Courbet died in exile in December 1877.[15][16] In 1874 meanwhile, the column was re-erected at the center of the Place Vendôme with a copy of the original statue on top.[citation needed] An inner staircase leading to the top is no longer open to the public.[citation needed]
Features
At the centre of the square's long sides, Hardouin-Mansart's range of Corinthian pilasters breaks forward under a pediment, to create palace-like fronts. The arcading of the formally rusticated ground floors does not provide an arcaded passageway as at the Place des Vosges. The architectural linking of the windows from one floor to the next, and the increasing arch of their windowheads, provide an upward spring to the horizontals formed by ranks of windows. Originally the square was accessible by a single street and preserved an aristocratic quiet, except when the annual fair was held there. Then Napoléon opened the Rue de la Paix, and the 19th century filled the Place Vendôme with traffic. It was only after the opening in 1875 of the Palais Garnier on the other side of the Rue de la Paix that the centre of the Parisian fashionable life started gravitating around the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendôme.[17]
Hôtels particuliers
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In popular culture
The Place Vendôme has been renowned for its fashionable and deluxe hotels such as the
After his death in 1990, American artist Keith Haring was cremated and his ashes were sprinkled out on a hillside near Kutztown, except for one handful, that Yoko Ono brought to the Place Vendôme because she believed the spirit of Haring had told her to.
In the 1920s, American architect, Alonzo C. Webb worked making advertisements and designs in English for some of the fashionable houses along the Place Vendôme.
Place Vendôme was a 1998 movie by Nicole Garcia starring Catherine Deneuve.
Mark Twain made reference to the Vendôme Column in his speech Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism.
The Place Vendôme is the setting for the theft of the Black Pearl in Episode 1 of Season 3 of the Netflix series Lupin.
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Panoramic view of the Place Vendôme
Notable residents
- fermier-général), at 10, Place Vendôme.
- Augustin Blondel de Gagny (1695—1776).
- Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny, (1727–1781), the brother of Madame de Pompadour, at 8, Place Vendôme.
- Franz Mesmer, (1734–1815), the German physician and discoverer of animal magnetism, at 16, Place Vendôme.
- Anne Lister (1791-1840), the English landowner and diarist, stayed at 24, Place Vendôme, a guesthouse run by M. and Mme de Boyve in 1824-25.[20] This is where she met and carried on an affair with Maria Barlow.[21]
- Frédéric Chopin, (1810–1849), the Polish composer, at 12, Place Vendôme, where he died.
- Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione (1837–1899), the former mistress of Napoleon III, lived in seclusion from the 1870s until the 1890s at 26, Place Vendôme, above Boucheron.
- Samuel Jean de Pozzi, (1846–1918), the surgeon and gynaecologist, at 10, Place Vendôme.
- Coco Chanel, (1883–1971), the fashion designer, at 15, Place Vendôme, (the Hôtel Ritz Paris).
- Prince Jefri Bolkiah, at 3-5, Place Vendôme.
Metro station
The Place Vendôme is:
Located near the Tuileries .
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See also
References
- ^ "Louis XIV (Le Grand Monarque)" in M. S. Fitzgerald, The Kings of Europe, Past and Present, and Their Families (London, Longman, Green, and Co., 1879).
- ^ Louvre picture
- ^ Walks in Paris
- ^ "Where to find the Texas Embassy in Paris?". 11 February 2017.
- ^ "Place Vendôme". Unveiling the Timeless Charm of Place Vendôme.
- ISBN 9781439131039.
- ^ Ambroise Tardieu, La Colonne de la Grande Armée d'Austerlitz ou de la Victoire, monument triomphal élevé à la gloire de la grande armée par Napoléon. Paris, 1822, p. 4 (list of sculptors) and plate 36 (statue of Napoleon).
- ISBN 9780802715166.
- ^ Маркс К., Энгельс Ф. Полное собрание сочиений. Москва. 2-е изд., т. 8, с. 217/Marx, K., and Engels, F. Complete collection of compositions. Moscow. 2nd ed., vol. 8, p. 217
- ISBN 0300084072. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
- ^ Linda Nochlin. 2007. 'Courbet, The Commune and the Visual Arts.' in Courbet. New York: Thames & Hudson. pp. 84–94.
- ^ "Attendu que la colonne Vendôme est un monument dénué de toute valeur artistique, tendant à perpétuer par son expression les idées de guerre et de conquête qui étaient dans la dynastie impériale, mais que réprouve le sentiment d’une nation républicaine, [le citoyen Courbet] émet le vœu que le gouvernement de la Défense nationale veuille bien l’autoriser à déboulonner cette colonne. [1],
- ^ Horne, Alistair (1965). "Chapter 23: 'Floreal 79'". The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-1. St. Martin's Press, New York. p. 351.
- ISBN 9781784780548.
- ^ Linda Nochlin. 2007. 'The De-Politicization of Gustave Courbet: Transformation and Rehabilitation under the Third Republic.' in Courbet. New York: Thames & Hudson. pp. 116–127.
- ISBN 9780802715166.
- ISBN 0-691-00081-6.
- ^ Sarmant, Thierry; Luce Gaume (2003). La Place Vendôme: art, pouvoir et fortune (in French). Paris: Action artistique de la ville de Paris. p. 250.
- ^ Chéruit, 21 Place Vendôme, Paris, website
- ^ "Christmas in Paris with Anne Lister |". www.annelister.co.uk. 19 December 2017. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
- ^ Orr, Dannielle (2006). A sojourn in Paris 1824-25: sex and sociability in the manuscript writings of Anne Lister (1791-1840) (phd thesis). Murdoch University.
External links
- Place Vendôme and its history
- Comité Vendôme Archived 2008-07-25 at the Wayback Machine (in French)