Place du Parlement

The Place du Parlement features a central fountain topped with a cast-iron lamp post, surrounded by facades from the eighteenth century. Merchants built these townhouses to display their wealth, carving mascarons—grotesque or beautiful faces—into the stone keystones above the windows. One night in seventeen sixty, the city council decided this square should serve as a hub for the local parliamentarians. They ordered the construction of these symmetrical buildings, and the square became the primary meeting point for Bordeaux's legal elite.