Square Claude-Nicolas-Ledoux

The Square Claude-Nicolas-Ledoux sits behind a high stone wall, marked by a massive, rusticated rotunda that once served as a tax collection point. Known as the Barrière d'Enfer, this gate was part of the Wall of the Farmers-General, a massive perimeter built in the eighteenth century to tax goods entering Paris. Citizens hated the wall, leading to the common joke that the wall walling Paris made Paris walling. Claude-Nicolas Ledoux designed these heavy, imposing structures to enforce the king's authority.