Area Hôtel de Ville, which lies in front of the Paris City Hall before was called Place de Greve - this ominous name is familiar to everyone who has read the novels of Dumas.

The name of the square comes from the French word greve, means sandy beach. Here, on the right bank of the Seine river pier was Paris. But it is not the business scope has glorified this place.

In 1240, King Louis IX ordered the destruction of all copies of the Talmud existed in the country. On the Place de Greve publicly burned 20 carts of ancient manuscripts. Soon after the turn and people.

Public executions took place in the area for more than five centuries, from 1310 to 1830. There were installed stationary gallows and pillory. Commoners were hanged, beheaded aristocrats, robbers on the wheel, heretics and witches were burned. Executions always attracted a large number of onlookers - in those days it was popular entertainment. In total, the Place de Greve was subtly deprived tens of thousands of people.

By the end of the XVIII century the spread of the ideas of humanism led to the general belief that there should be less cruel method of death is the same for all classes. In 1792, a doctor and member of the National Assembly Joseph Guillotin proposed the use of a well-known in many countries of the mechanism of a heavy falling knife. In France, he immediately called the guillotine.

April 25, 1792 was on the Place de Greve was executed on the guillotine simple thief. Soon, however, the unit was transferred to the terrible Revolution Square (now - Concord), where most of the killings took place, and that bloody era.

In 1803 the area was given its current name. It was on her, it was announced the creation of the interim government of the Revolution of 1848, hailed the French Republic September 4, 1870 and the Paris Commune of 1871.

Now it is a beautiful and very popular among Parisians place. Since 1982, the area became a pedestrian zone. In winter skating rink here in the summer on a special coating sprinkled sand so that you can play beach volleyball.