It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. It is believed to be the first large modern equestrian statue to be cast in a single piece. It was destroyed in the French Revolution ; however, there is a small version in the Louvre.
Hardouin-Mansart bought the building and its gardens, with the idea of converting it into building lots as a profitable speculation. The plan did not materialize, and Louis XIV's Minister of Finance, Louvois , purchased the piece of ground, with the object of building a square, modelled on the successful Place des Vosges of the previous century.
Louvois came into financial difficulties and nothing came of his project, either. After his death, the king purchased the plot and commissioned Hardouin-Mansart to design a house-front that the buyers of plots round the square would agree to adhere to. Law suffered a major blow when he was forced to pay back taxes amounting to some tens of millions of dollars.
With no way to pay such an amount, he was forced to sell the property he owned on the square. Their intention to restore a family palace on the site was dependent on the possible intentions of the adjacent Justice Ministry to expand its premises. The Foire Saint-Ovide settled in on the Place until The original column was started in at Napoleon 's direction and completed in The usual figure given is hugely exaggerated: cannon were actually captured at Austerlitz. A statue of Napoleon by Antoine-Denis Chaudet was placed on top of the column.
Napoleon is depicted dressed in Roman attire, bare-headed, crowned with laurels, holding a sword in his right hand and a globe surmounted with a statue of Victory as in Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker in his left hand. In , taking advantage of the Allied occupying force, a mob of men and horses had attached a cable to the neck of the statue of Napoleon atop the column, but it had refused to budge — one woman quipped: "If the Emperor is as solid on his throne as this statue is on its column, he's nowhere near descending the throne".
