e. In 1795 the Directory changed the name to Place de la
Concorde, and again in 1799 a seated statue of Liberty holding a globe
was set up. In the hollow sphere a pair of wild doves built their
nest--a futile augury, for in 1801 Liberty II. was broken in pieces,
and the model for a tall granite column erected in its place by
Napoleon I. One year passed and this too disappeared. After the
Restoration, among the other inanities came, in 1816, a second statue
of Louis XV., and the Place resumed its original name. Ten years later
an expiatory monument to Louis XVI. was begun, only to be swept away
with other Bourbon lumber by the July Revolution of 1830. At length
the famous obelisk from Luxor, after many vicissitudes, was elevated
in 1836 where it now stands.

The Place as we behold it dates from 1854, when the deep fosses which
surrounded it in Louis XV.'s time, and which were responsible for the
terrible disaster that attended the wedding festivities of Louis XVI.
and Marie Antoinette, were filled up, and other improvements and
embellishments effected. The vast space and magnificent vistas enjoyed
from this square are among the finest urban spectacles in Europe. To
the north, on either side of the broad Rue Royale which opens to the
Madeleine, stand Gabriel's fine edifices (now the Ministry of Marine
and the Cercle de la Rue Royale), designed to accommodate foreign
ambassadors. To the south is the Palais Bourbon, now the Chamber of
Deputies; to the east are the gardens of the Tuileries, and to the
west is the stately Grande Avenue of the Champs Elysees rising to the
colossal Arch of Triumph crowning the eminence of the Place de
l'Etoile. As our eyes travel along the famous avenue, memories of the
military glories and of the threefold humiliation of Imperial France
crowd upon us. For down its ample way there marched in 1814 and 1815
two hostile and conquering armies to occupy Paris, and in 1871 the
immense vault of the Arc de Triomphe, an arch of greater magnitude
than any raised to Roman Caesars, echoed to the shouts of another
exultant foreign host, mocking as they strode beneath it at the names
of German defeats inscribed on its stones. And on the very Place de la
Concorde, German hussars waltzed in pairs to the brazen music of a
Uhlan band, while a line of French sentries across the entrance to the
Tuileries gardens gazed sullenly on. To this day the mourning statue
of Strassbourg with her sable drapery and immortelle