THE POWER SYMBOLS AT THE CENTER OF MAJOR PLACES
EVOLVE WITH CHANGING REGIMES
The equestrian statue of the king on pont Neuf bridge is their common origin.
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At place de l'Étoile, the Arc de Triomphe exalts the victories of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies. Napoleon began it, the Restauration kings continued it to glorify an invasion of Spain, and Louis-Philippe finished and inaugurated it.
He hoped that making the Invalides the Emperor's sepulchre and completing the Arc (both in 1836) would connect him with Napoleon and so unite the people around his illegitimate rule (please click scroll down).
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Internet, photographer not named |
At place de l'Opéra the monument itself is the symbol, for it represents the regime (the Second Empire in the 1860's).
Claude Abron |
An enclosed space, straight, converging streets and homogeneous architecture
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At place Vendôme, La Commune destroys the column built to honor Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz (battle 1805, original column 1807) for its militarism (on May 16, 1871)...
"A monument to barbarity, a symbol of brute force and false glory, the victors' permanent insult to the vanquished [...]. The Vendôme column will be demolished."
-- Decree of Destruction
The painter Gustave Courbet said the figures, which of about the same size, look like "gingerbread men."
Preparation de la démolition, dernières mesures by Bruno Braquehais / zoom
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Souvenirs de la Commune: la colonne Vendôme démolie, anonymous, 1871 / zoom
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La Colonne Vendôme démolie by Bruno Braquehais /zoom
It was supposed to have been made from cannons seized from the enemy, but Communards found only a thin layer of bronze.
Internet, photographer not named
We see a copy.
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Although set between the river and a street the Grand Courtyard of the Louvre cannot draw converging routes...
- The space is public, the architecture homogeneous...
And the Pyramid evokes the State:
Entrée to Black Paris
Faced with an outcry against putting the contemporary work in the ancestral setting, the "Sun King of Socialism" — President Mitterand — said, "I want it!" and the opposition answered the equivalent of "Oui, Sire" (in 1984).
President Macron celebrated his electoral victory with the Pyramid in the background (in 2017):
Image from widely-seen video
The royal imprint,
a current event.
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Detour:
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