Champ de Mars

Before this grand esplanade became a famous park, the area was a marshy plain where Parisians grew fruits and vegetables on small, individual garden plots. The transformation of this space began in the middle of the eighteenth century when King Louis the Fifteenth commissioned the neighboring École Militaire. Architects leveled the boggy ground and replaced the farm plots with a formal parade field designed for military drills, intending it to be a majestic extension of the royal school. Its name, the Champ de Mars, honors Mars, the Roman god of war, reflecting the site's original purpose as a strict training ground for future army officers.