Place de la République

The Place de la République is defined by the massive bronze statue of Marianne, the personification of the French Republic, standing atop a stone pedestal nearly thirty feet high. While the square now serves as a vast pedestrian plaza, it originated as a defensive fortification along the ancient city walls. In eighteen eighty-three, the Morice brothers won a competition to install this figure, holding an olive branch and representing the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity to those passing through the intersection.