Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Liberation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Liberation
location
Arrondissement 4th
quarter Saint-Merri
Beginning 2, Quai de Gesvres and Quai de l'Hôtel-de-Ville
The End 31, rue de Rivoli
morphology
length 155 m
width 82 m
history
Original names Place de Grève (until 1803)
Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville (1803–2013)
Coding
Paris 4579

The Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville (until 1803 Place de Grève ) is located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris and is the old economic and today's municipal center of the city. In 2013 it was renamed Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Liberation .

Location and access

The square is located on the north bank of the Seine in the Saint-Merri district of the 4th arrondissement. It is 155 meters long and 82 meters wide.

The Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville is framed

Avenue Victoria begins on the west side; The square is connected to the Île de la Cité via the Pont d'Arcole .

Transport links

Name origin

Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Liberation

The square is in front of the Paris City Hall .

It was renamed Esplanade de la Liberation on April 22, 2013 to honor all those who were in the Resistance , the Forces françaises de l'intérieur , the 4th Infantry Division on the night of August 24-25, 1944 for the liberation of Paris .

The Place de Grève

Grève refers to a flat, gravel-covered place on the bank of a sea or a river. Before the Place de Grève was raised and the Quai de la Grève was renamed to the Quai de l'Hôtel-de-Ville and paved, this place was actually a beach on the Seine .

Description of the Place de Grève

Nicolas Raguenet : "Place de Grève and decorations for the fireworks on the occasion of the birth of Maria Theresa, daughter of the Dauphin " (1746)
Nicolas Raguenet: “The town hall and the Place de Grève” around 1753

In ancient times, the later Place de Grève crossed the Roman road laid on planks through the marshland ( Marais ) to Melun and into the Champagne , which would later remain the most important road to the east. In the early Middle Ages, the city's most important port, Port en Grève, developed here, on the Place de Grève, which is a quarter smaller, and on the adjoining shoreline due to the geographic characteristics of the region. It soon also had an infrastructure of warehouses (chantiers) and inns (wine bars , Inns). The word Grève denoted a flat sand or pebble beach on which there was the possibility of pulling ships ashore and which had to be used as long as there were no pontoons . The place is also the etymological root for the French word for strike , as here in the port, for the first time in France, day laborers, the showers , and organized entrepreneurs, the nautae , met each other to discuss wage claims; if necessary, the showers went on strike.

The Maison aux piliers, the house of the merchants' guild, the Prévôté des marchands , from which the communal structures developed, was also located on the Place de Grève , which is why the Hôtel de Ville is still located here today .

As the central square of the city, the Place de Grève was also used for executions. Here died:

The execution of Anne du Bourgs (1559)

On April 25, 1792, Nicolas Pelletier, a robbery murderer, was guillotined for the first time on Place de Grève . The crowd was so disappointed with the speed of the procedure that the hit song Rendez-moi ma potence de bois, rendez-moi ma potence ("Give me back my gallows") was sung the next day .

From November 1794 to May 1795 there was again a guillotine on the Place de Grève. Among the last people to be executed here were MP Jean-Baptiste Carrier and Public Prosecutor Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville .

Quote

Victor Hugo , Notre Dame de Paris , 2nd book, 2nd chapter (1831):

«Il ne reste aujourd'hui qu'un bien imperceptible vestige de la place de Grève telle qu'elle existait alors. C'est la charming tourelle qui occupe l'angle nord de la place, et qui, déjà ensevelie sous l'ignoble badigeonnage qui empâte les vives arêtes de ses sculptures, aura bientôt disparu peut-être, submergée par cette crue de maisons neuves qui dévore si rapidement toutes les vieilles façades de Paris. […] La Grève avait dès lors cet aspect sinistre que lui conservent encore aujourd'hui l'idée exécrable qu'elle réveille et le sombre Hôtel de Ville de Dominique Boccador, qui a remplacé la Maison-aux-Piliers. Il faut dire qu'un gibet et un pilori permanents, une justice et une échelle, comme on disait alors, dressés côte à côte au milieu du pavé, ne contribuaient pas peu à faire détourner les yeux de cette place fatale, où tant d ' êtres pleins de santé et de vie ont agonisé; où devait naître cinquante ans plus tard cette fièvre de Saint-Vallier , cette maladie de la terreur de l'échafaud, la plus monstrueuse de toutes les maladies, parce qu'elle ne vient pas de Dieu, mais de l'homme. »

history

Panneau Histoire de Paris
" Hôtel de ville "
In the foreground the Place de Grève , in the background the former town hall before its reconstruction (1533) with the missing Église Saint-Jean-en-Grève ( plan by Braun and Hogenberg around 1530)
The former town hall and the Place de Grève around 1610 by Claude Chastillon

The place used to be a kind of beach where the goods brought on the Seine could easily be unloaded.

That is why a port was built here very quickly, which gradually replaced the port of Saint-Landry on the Île de la Cité . The Port de Grève became the most important Parisian port: wood, wheat, wine and hay were unloaded here, which made it easier to set up a market. Such a weighty quarter developed around the harbor.

From the 12th century a public market was established here, which was named Place de Grève ( German for “beach place” ) because of its proximity to the Seine . The unemployed could easily find work here. The expression faire grève originally meant "to stay on the Place de Grève to find work here" before it got its current content: French faire la Grève means since 1872 "to put down work together in order to get a better wage" . Today the word grève also has the meaning of strike (see also strike in France ).  

With the charter of King Louis VII the Younger of 1141, at the request of the Parisian bourgeoisie, the market in the districts of La Grève and Le Monceau was abolished for the sum of seventy Paris pounds (livres parisis) , which the citizens paid to the royal treasury. This freed up space and no building was erected here. Various celebrations have been held in the square since then. In 1242 24 Talmudic loads were solemnly burned here in the presence of the head of the merchants' guild and the clergy, which permanently broke the relationship between Jews and Christians. The city also held festivals such as the St. John's bonfire here . This was traditionally fanned by the King of France himself; it was celebrated here until 1648, when Louis XIV performed the ceremony for the last time.

The executions usually took place in the square. The exact date of the first execution is unknown; the first documented execution is mentioned in 1310 when a heretic named Margareta Porete was burned here.

In 1357, the city council of Paris set up its seat here under the direction of the head of the merchants' guild, Étienne Marcel . For this purpose the "House of Pillars" was purchased. In 1362, the Hôpital du Saint-Esprit was founded in the north of the Hôtel de Ville . The church belonging to it was built in 1406. However, the building complex was destroyed in 1798.

When Francis I returned from the Italian War , he decided to replace the House of Columns with a new building and commissioned the Italian Domenico da Cortona to build it. The new building, which was planned in 1533, was not completed until 1628.

On July 4, 1653, Louis XIV and Jules Mazarin were present at a fireworks display that was set off on the Place de Grève. Then the city administration gave a meal.

On June 17, 1763, another fireworks display was set off in front of the Hôtel de Ville, this time on the occasion of the declaration of peace in 1763 .

On April 25, 1792, the first guillotine execution took place on Place de Grève. The convict, Nicolas Jacques Pelletier , was a simple thief. The public, used to more fancy execution methods since the Middle Ages, was disappointed at the speed of the procedure. The next day a song made the rounds: "Rendez-moi ma potence de bois, rendez-moi ma potence" ("Give me back my wooden gallows, give me back my gallows").

The guillotine was again on the square between November 1794 and May 1795. The last executions that took place here were those of Jean-Baptiste Carrier , Member of the National Convention , and the public accusateur , Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville .

Jean-Victor Schnetz : Le Combat devant l'Hôtel de ville le 28 juillet 1830 , Museum Petit Palais , Paris
The square on a plan by Edme Verniquet (end of the 18th century) before the enlargement in 1900 (up to then half of the current area)

On March 19, 1803, the square was renamed Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville . A ministerial resolution on September 20, 1817 set the width to 67 m.

During the July Revolution of 1830 (especially on July 28, 1830) the square and the Hôtel de Ville were particularly fierce between the regular troops and the rebels. During the day the square and the building were lost and recaptured several times, until by the end of the day the rebels gained the upper hand.

On January 20, 1832, a decree of the Count de Bondy , Prefect of the Seine department , ordered the place of execution to be relocated: “Les condamnations emportant la peine capitale seront à l'avenir exécutées sur l'emplacement qui se trouve à l'extrémité de la rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques. ”(“ In future, death sentences will be carried out on the premises at the end of Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques . ”)

The square took on its present form in the second half of the 14th century as part of the work to redesign Paris under the Second Empire . At the same time the square was expanded to Rue de Rivoli . The western side of the square will be expanded along the Rue du Renard . The square therefore takes over Rue du Mouton in the north and Rue Jean-de-l'Épine in the west.

Plaque on house no.9 (annex to the town hall), in honor of the 9e compagnie du régiment de marche du Tchad
Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville in winter 2011

After the destruction during the Paris Commune , the Paris City Hall, which had undergone major changes at the beginning of the 19th century, was rebuilt in a modified, original style.

The square became a pedestrian zone in 1982. On April 22, 2013, by decision of the Conseil de Paris , the square was officially named Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville - Esplanade de la Liberation in honor of the liberation of Paris in 1944.

Today the square is used for a variety of events:

Fêtes de la Saint-Jean

Panneau Histoire de Paris
Johannisfest

Every year on the evening before Midsummer there was a strange scene on the square. The magistrate had bundles of brushwood piled up, in the middle of which was a tree up to 30 m high, which was decorated with bouquets of flowers, crowns and rose garlands. A basket containing about two dozen cats and a fox was hung on the tree . As soon as the trumpets announced the arrival of the king, the chief of the merchants and the echevins , who carried yellow wax torches, went up to the tree and presented the monarch with a white wax torch lined with two handles of red velvet, whereupon the monarch opened the fire lit. The cats were burned alive and the people cheered. The king then went to the town hall, where he had a snack consisting of musk dragees, dry jams, marzipan, etc.

In a story about the city from 1573 one can read about this ceremony:

«À Lucas Pommereux, l'un des commissaires des quais de la ville, 100 sols parisis, pour avoir fourni durant trois années tous les chats qu'il falloit au dit feu, comme de coutume; même pour avoir fourni il ya un an où le roi assista, un renard pour thunder plaisir à sa Majesté, et pour avoir fourni un grand sac de toile où étoient les dits chats. »

An orientation board on the corner of the square with the Quai de l'Hôtel-de-Ville reminds of this story.

Place de Grève as a place of execution

Panneau Histoire de Paris
"Place de Grève"

The exact year from which the pillory was placed on the square is not known. The execution of the sentence was different:

The first execution of the sentence took place on Whitsun 1310 under the government of Philip IV, the Handsome . The list of executions ordered by the court began with a heretic named Margareta Porete , a Beauvais priest who was also accused of heresy, and a recidivist Jew who was burned.

Under the Ancien Régime , this place was also used for public executions and torture. The impostor François de La Ramée was hanged here, François Ravaillac , who murdered Henri IV , and Robert François Damiens , who tried to kill Louis XV. to kill were executed by quartering . On February 22, 1680 Catherine Monvoisin was burned for witchcraft in the poison affair .

The Revolution continued this tradition: the first guillotine execution took place in the square in 1792 .

The last execution took place on July 22, 1830: Jean-Pierre Martin had been sentenced to death for theft and murder.

On September 21, 1831, on the anniversary of the execution of the Quatre sergents de La Rochelle, 3,000 to 4,000 Freemasons gathered in Place de Grève to demand the abolition of the death penalty; they signed a petition to this effect.

On October 20, 1831, Justice Minister Félix Barthedarum asked for the Place de Grève, where capital crimes had been carried out for more than 520 years, to be replaced with another place suitable for executions. So the Grève lost the racing omee he had acquired over the years in the anals of crime. On December 22, 1831, first the Place Vauban , then on January 2, 1832, the Place d'Italie, until finally the Prefect of the Seine department on January 20, 1832, the official decree for a place at the far end of the Rue du Faubourg-Saint -Jacques signed.

«Nous, Pair de France, Préfet,
Vu la lettre qui nous a été adressé par M. le procureur-général de la Cour royale de la Seine;
Considérant que la place de Grève ne peut plus servir de lieu d'exécution depuis que de généreux citoyens y ont glorieusement versé leur sang pour la cause nationale22; considérant qu'il importe de désigner de préférence des lieux éloignés du center de Paris et qui aient des abords faciles; considérant en outre que, par des raisons d'humanité, ces lieux doivent être choisis le plus près de la prison où sont détenus les condamnés; considérant que sous ces différents rapports la place située à l'extrémité de la rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques parait réunir les conditions nécessaires;
Avons arrêté:
Les condamnations emportant la peine capitale seront à l'avenir exécutées sur l'emplacement qui se trouve à l'extrémité de la rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques.
Signé comte de Bondy. "

literature

  • Jacques Hillairet , (fr) Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris .
  • Félix et Louis Lazare, Dictionnaire administratif et historique des rues de Paris et de ses monuments .
  • Jean de La Tynna, Dictionnaire topographique, étymologique et historique des rues de Paris , 1817.

See also

Web links

Translation of the quotations

  1. ↑ “Today there is only an imperceptible remnant of the Place de Grève, as it existed then. This is an enchanting tower that occupies the northeast corner of the square, and which, already buried under the unworthy painting that pastes the sharp edges of his sculptures, may soon be gone, inundated by the deluge of new houses that are so quickly gone engulfs the old facades of Paris. […] The Grève had thus retained its gloomy sight even today, through the hideous thought it evokes and Dominique Boccador's gloomy Hôtel de Ville, who replaced the Maison-aux-Piliers. It must be said that the permanent gallows and pillory - justice and yardstick, as they said - which were erected side by side in the middle of the pavement did not a little to turn our gaze from this fateful place where so many living beings full of life and health were tormented; where, 50 years later, the fever of Saint-Vallier was to originate, the plague of terror of the scaffold, the most monstrous of all diseases because it does not come from God but from man. "
  2. ↑ “To Lucas Pommereux, one of the commissioners of the quays of the city, 100 sols parisis , for providing all cats needed for the fire for three years, as usual; also for getting a fox a year ago, when the king was there to please His Majesty, and for providing a large cloth bag in which the cats were. "
  3. ↑ We, peers of France , prefect , in view of the letter that Jean-Charles Persil , Procureur-général de la Cour royale de la Seine , sent us ; Taking into account that the Place de Grève can no longer be used as a place of execution, as great citizens have gloriously shed their blood there for the national cause ; taking into account that it is preferable to designate locations which are far from the center of Paris and easily accessible; taking into account that, for reasons of humanity, places should also be chosen which are closer to the prison of the convicted; taking into account that, bearing in mind these arguments, the square at the end of the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques combines these aspects; We have ordered: That in future death sentences are to be carried out in the square at the far end of the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques . Drawn by Pierre-Marie Taillepied de Bondy

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Paris: the place de l'Hôtel de Ville devient l'Esplanade de la Liberation. In: L'Express. April 22, 2013.
  2. ↑ See se mettre en grève , literally: “to meet at Grève Square”.
  3. ^ A b Félix Lazare, Louis Lazare: Dictionnaire administratif et historique des rues de Paris et de ses monuments . Edition 1844, pp. 322–324 ( digitized from gallica.bnf.fr ).
  4. ↑ La Seine, les ponts et les ports de Paris. In: Atlas historique de Paris.
  5. ^ Pierre Jullien: La grève, pour éviter de se retrouver sur le sable. In: Le Monde. September 9, 2016.
  6. ^ Béatrice Philippe: Être juif dans la société française. Chapter «De l'an 1000 à l'expulsion de 1394».
  7. ^ Yves-Marie Bercé: Fête et révolte. Des popular mentalités du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle. Hachette, Paris 1976, "Le Temps et les Hommes" collection, p. 62.
  8. ↑ Adolphe Chéruel: Histoire de France sous le ministère de Mazarin (1651-1661). Volume 2, Hachette, 1882 ( digitized from Google Books).
  9. ^ Vue perspective d'un feu d'artifice tiré devant l'Hôtel de Ville pour la publication de la paix à Paris. In: gallica.bnf.fr.
  10. ↑ 25 avril 1792: première utilization de la guillotine sur un condamné. In: France-pittoresque.com.
  11. ^ Paris orientation table, Avenue de Rivoli
  12. ↑ Ulysse Tencé, Annuaire historique universel , Volume 15, p. 261.
  13. ↑ Eugène Andriveau-Goujon: Plan d'ensemble des travaux de Paris à l'échelle de 0.001 mètres pour 10 (1/10000) indiquant les voies Executees et projetées de 1851 à 1868. E. Andriveau-Goujon, Paris. 1868
  14. ↑ Émile de Labédollière, Le nouveau Paris: histoire de ses 20 arrondissements , Paris, Gustave Barba, p. 58

Coordinates: 48 ° 51 '24 "  N , 2 ° 21' 5"  E

Portal: Paris  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Paris