ELYSÉE PALACE, RESIDENCE OF PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.
CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES (PALAIS BOURBON).
by the ancient Hôtel de Nesle. It contains a museum of coins and medals as well as the workshops for the making of coins.
Another of the king’s languid interests was the Military School which looms imposingly across the southeastern end of the Champ de Mars as the modern tourist sits at luncheon on the first ‘stage’ of the Eiffel Tower. The Field of Mars itself, now green with lawns and bright with flowers, was laid out as a drill ground on the very spot where a battle with the Normans took place during the siege of 885 A.D. Its great size has frequently made it useful for large gatherings of people, and no fewer than four World Exhibitions have erected their plaster cities upon its ample space.
Another open place of impressive size was the present Place de la Concorde, first called the Place Louis XV. This vast square, now the center of Paris, was framed on the side of the Tuileries gardens by balustrades designed by Gabriel, the architect of the Military School, and was planned as a setting for that colossal statue of the King on which a wag pinned a placard saying:
“He is here as at Versailles,
Without heart and without entrails.”