Memories of the French Revolution in the Place de la Concorde

The parade had a short life, but nonetheless (according to polls carried out later that year) it was the most memorable event of the bicentennial. It was also shocking to many. The national anthem was sung by Jessye Norman, a black American-born opera singer. That night, France was no longer repre­sented by the traditional blonde peasant woman, allegorically sowing the seeds of liberty, but by a black American opera singer. In addition the anthem was performed in the centre of a large amphitheatre that was built especially for the event. In a complex set of references, the amphitheatre was a replica of the one built for the first anniversary of the revolution in 1790, an event called the Festival of Federation (Figure 7.2). If we agree that spectacles are not mis-representations but powerful cultural expressions, then we should take the time and deconstruct this performative moment of the parade.

To start with, the place where the performance occurred immedi­ately folds upon itself: the physical site of the Place de la Concorde is transformed by the insertion of the first commemoration of the revolutionary act. The amphitheatre built for the bicentennial on Place de la Concorde is a quotation from history since it is a reconstruction of the bleachers that were

built in 1790 (Figure 7.3). Mona Ozouf describes such commemorative acts as following the ‘logic of the same’, they replicate a gesture invested with symbolic power. While the memory of the amphitheatre of 1790 is detached from its original site on the Champ de Mars, when it is rebuilt on Place de la Concorde two centuries later, it carries with it the memory of that first moment of incarnation. One might think that only an architectural historian would have been able to associate the 1989 amphitheatre built on the Place de la Concorde with the one of 1790, but during the bicentennial, images of the eighteenth century and the revolution were diffused in many forms and in many places. An enormous number of archival images, including many of the festival of federation and its monumental amphitheatre, were reprinted and distributed as postcards, books, guidebooks and souvenirs. I would propose that the temporary amphitheatre built on Place de la Concorde, in fact inscribed a double meaning in the urban landscape through the spatialization of history. The first was about providing sitting for a special crowd of people during the parade and the second was about recalling a happy moment in the revolutionary past.

According to Jean-Noel Jeannenay, the organizer of the bicenten­nial celebrations,

the double emphasis expressed best the happy beginning of the revolutionary process. If the Bastille represents a moment of force, spontaneity and liberation, the Fete de la Federation represents a day when representatives of each department came to ‘swear to defend and conserve liberty’ – expressing through their presence their adherence to the new order founded a year before.15

It is also revealing that Jeannenay entirely omits the dark memories of the revolution associated with this site, because even though the bicentennial organizers wanted to spatialize certain historical references in this layering, references they avoided were still present in many peoples’ minds. Unlike certain places which are packaged as ‘heritage’ with little explanation of what this heritage encompasses or what it might mean to us today, the memories around the Place de la Concorde could not have been more specific – it is one of several places where a guillotine was erected during the revolution. Perhaps because the king was executed here, the plaza has become associ­ated with the memory of the guillotine and the Terror.

The difficult memories associated with this place are reflected in its changes of name. In 1772, the open space was first designed as a plaza by Gabriel and was decorated with a statue of Louis XV riding his horse which gave its name as Place Louis XV. During the revolution, the statue was toppled

and the plaza appropriately renamed Place de la Revolution in 1792. Louis XVI was executed here in 1793, and Marie Antoinette in 1794. The daily Liberation lists others executed on Place de la Revolution, ‘the guillotine, set up near the Tuileries gates, also executed Charlotte Corday, Danton, Saint Just, and Robespierre; all in all, 1,115 heads have rolled’.16 The plaza was so strongly associated with the revolution that Napoleon changed its name to Place de la Concorde.

As the symbol of concord and national unity, [the architect] Hittorff in a daring and innovative gesture located a politically ‘neutral’ 240- ton Egyptian obelisk – a ‘gift’ from the viceroy of Egypt to the people of France – in the centre of the wide-open square.17

Although the guillotine was still operating, the state had moved it away from its site of spectacle, to the hidden and secure environment of the prison courtyard.