Pl. Vendôme

The story

Laid out on the grounds of César de Vendôme's mansion, the square first honoured Louis XIV, whose equestrian statue a crowd toppled in 1792. Mansart gave it cut corners and identical facades: rusticated ground floors, Corinthian pilasters spanning two storeys and broken roofs. The central column, raised in 1810 after Trajan's Column in Rome, carries a spiral relief of the 1806 campaign; the Communards pulled it down in 1871 before it was restored. Couturiers crowded the area after Worth opened on nearby Rue de la Paix in 1858. Boucheron became the square's first jeweller in 1893, followed by Chaumet, Van Cleef & Arpels and later watchmakers from Breguet to Rolex. The Ritz occupies No. 15, and the Ministry of Justice No. 13, with the Tuileries to the south and the Opéra Garnier to the north.