Saint-Sulpice Fountain

The Saint-Sulpice Fountain stands in the center of the square as a monument to irony and architectural debate. Designed by Louis Visconti and built between eighteen forty-three and eighteen forty-eight, it features four stone statues of prominent seventeenth-century French bishops. Because these four men were famous for their public speaking but never rose to the rank of cardinal, Parisians began calling the monument the Fountain of the Four Not Cardinals. This clever pun plays on the French term for cardinal points, which the four statues also represent as they face the four directions of the compass.