Salle Wagram

The Salle Wagram features a prominent, horseshoe-shaped balcony and a ceiling painted with figures representing the arts. This hall opened in eighteen sixty-five, named for the Battle of Wagram, where Napoleon triumphed in eighteen oh nine. Architecturally, the space mirrors the grandeur of a nineteenth-century ballroom, but its defining moment arrived in nineteen fifty-two. That year, the French police occupied the building to prevent a protest, turning this site of high-society galas into a temporary barracks for thousands of officers.