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214 wide. The Seine flows by the south of this square, and beyond the Seine is visible the Chamber des Deputes with its fine Corinthian pillars. The Rue Royale stretches to the north, terminating in the Church of Medeleine corresponding in its noble architecture with the Chambre des Deputes. The gardens of Tuilleries bound it on the east and those of the Champs Elysees on the west. In the centre of this noble square is the Luxor obelisk, an Egyptian monument of 1500 B. C., and presented to Louis Philippe by Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt. North and south of this obelisk are two noble fountains, representing the rivers and the sea respectively, while all round the square are eight fine statues representing Bordeaux and Nantes, Rouen and Brest, Marseilles and Lyon, and Lille and Strasbourg respectively. Since the loss of Strasbourg in 1871 the statue representing that town has been draped in mourning, and the following significant inscription is written under it:

Such is the Place de la Concorde now, but it has a long and mournful history to tell. In 1763 the place was first levelled and the statue of Louis XV. was raised in its centre by an enthusiastic and loyal people;—nineteen years afterwards that statue was melted and coined into pennies and the title of the square was changed into Place de la Revolution! In the next year Louis XVI. was guillotined on the very spot where his father's statue had been erected twenty years before! For two years the fearful instrument did its bloody work on this spot, and 2,800 persons, some of them the bravest and noblest