The Square du Vert-Galant is a small, triangular park pointing downstream located at the western tip of the Ile de la Cité, next to the Pont Neuf, in the First Arrondissement of Paris.
The original Equestrian statue of Henry IV was erected on west side of the Pont Neuf in 1618, and overlooked the Square du Vert-Galant and the future park.
The current version, recast in 1818 by François-Frédéric Lemot after the Bourbon Restoration in France, and uses a copy of the original mold, although varies in a few details.
Two small islands originally lay just west of the bridge; the Île à la Gourdaine or Island of the Patriarch, and the Ile aux Juifs, which had been the site of the persecution and execution of Jews, and which in 1314 had been the execution site of Jacques de Molay, the head of the Knights Templar, as well as another Templar leader, Geoffroi de Charney.
[7] However, due to the area's low lying level, this was destroyed by a flood in 1879, and the land was sold to the city of Paris in 1884 to be made a green space.