At the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées, the grand-scale place de la Concorde is much less peaceful than its name suggests. Between 1793 and 1795, some 1300 people died here beneath the Revolutionary guillotine: Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Danton and Robespierre among them. Today, constantly circumnavigated by traffic, the centrepiece of the place is a gold-tipped obelisk from the temple of Ramses at Luxor, offered as a favour-currying gesture by the viceroy of Egypt in 1829. From the centre of the square you can admire the alignment of the French parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, on the far side of the Seine, with the church of the Madeleine at the end of rue Royale, to the north. The Neoclassical Hôtel Crillon – the ultimate luxury address for visitors to Paris – and its twin, the Hôtel de la Marine, housing the Ministry of the Navy, flank the entrance to rue Royale, which, needless to say, meets the Voie Triomphale at a precise right angle.
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