Place des Victoires

At the centre of the Place des Victoires is an equestrian monument in honour of King Louis XIV,[1] celebrating the Treaties of Nijmegen concluded in 1678–79.

Hardouin-Mansart's design, of 1685, articulated the square's unified façades according to a formula utilised in some Parisian hôtels particuliers (palatial private homes).

Louis permanently abandoned Paris in 1682, and his imperial ambitions in Europe were deflated by subsequent wars; the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697 was termed "a humiliating disaster for the king" by the military architect Vauban.

[5] "During the course of the eighteenth century," Rochelle Ziskin has noted, "critics would suggest that the arrogance of representation at the Place des Victoires had serious political consequences and may have been a factor in provoking war."

In 1828, the restored Bourbon king, Charles X, commissioned the current equestrian statue, which was sculpted by François Joseph Bosio in imitation of the famous Bronze Horseman.