Pont de la Concorde — Stones of the Bastille
The Pont de la Concorde in Paris spans the Seine using stones taken from the demolished Bastille fortress after its fall in 1789. Architect Jean-Rodolphe Perronet completed the construction in 1791 at age 82, using the prison blocks so revolutionaries could trample the fortress underfoot. The bridge held five different names before permanently acquiring its current title in 1830.
Paris · from the walk “From the Cathedral to the Iron Lady” · audio ~3 min · Generated
Pont de la Concorde, Paris
- Architect Jean-Rodolphe Perronet completed Paris's Pont de la Concorde in 1791 at the age of 82.
- The Bastille prison held only seven prisoners when revolutionaries stormed the fortress on July 14, 1789.
- George Washington received a key to the Bastille from the Marquis de Lafayette in 1790.
- Napoleon placed heavy statues of generals on the Pont de la Concorde in 1810 before relocating them to Versailles.
Why was the Pont de la Concorde in Paris built using stones from the Bastille?
Look at your feet. No, really... look down. Because what you are standing on right now is not just any bridge. The stones beneath you once formed the walls of the most Feared prison in France... the Bastille.......... Can you imagine? The very blocks that held prisoners in darkness for decades now lie flat under your shoes, carrying buses and bicycles across the Seine.......... This is the Pont de la Concorde. The architect Jean-Rodolphe Perronet was commissioned in seventeen eighty-seven to build this bridge. The design had actually been conceived back in seventeen seventy-two, but conservative officials found it too daring. Perronet personally supervised construction despite his advanced age... he was eighty-two when the work was completed in seventeen ninety-one.......... Now here is where history gets dramatic. The bridge's construction had been underway before seventeen eighty-nine, but the majority of the stones needed to finish it had not been procured. Then on July fourteenth... the Bastille fell. The demolition of the Bastille offered the perfect opportunity to finish the bridge and build one of the first monuments of the new republic.......... And the revolutionaries had a wicked sense of poetry. The architect Perronet completed the bridge using stone blocks from the Bastille "so that the people could constantly trample underfoot the old fortress."
...... But here is what most people do Not know. When the Bastille was stormed, there were only Seven prisoners inside. Four forgers, two mentally ill men, and a count imprisoned at his family's request. The Marquis de Sade himself had been transferred out just ten days earlier, after shouting to passers-by that the prisoners were being massacred! The fortress was practically empty... yet it changed the world.......... And the story crosses oceans. In seventeen ninety, George Washington received the key to the Bastille prison from the Marquis de Lafayette. It remains at Mount Vernon to this day. Lafayette called it a tribute "as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch."
...... This bridge has had Five different names! It was known as Pont Louis Seize, then Pont de la Révolution, then Pont de la Concorde, then back to Louis Seize during the Bourbon Restoration, and finally renamed Pont de la Concorde again in eighteen thirty... the name it keeps to this day. In eighteen ten, Napoléon placed statues of French generals on the bridge, but the weight was too great for the structure, and the statues were moved to Versailles.......... So next time someone tells you a bridge is just a bridge... remember this one. It is built from the bones of tyranny, designed by an eighty-year-old genius, and still carries the memory of a revolution in every single stone.