La Rotonde Stalingrad

You are standing before La Rotonde Stalingrad, a grand neoclassical structure that was never intended to be a public landmark. It was built between seventeen eighty-four and seventeen eighty-eight as part of the Wall of the Farmers-General, a massive fiscal barrier that circled Paris. The purpose of this wall was to collect taxes on all goods—from wine to grain—entering the city. Because these taxes made everyday life more expensive, the wall was deeply despised by the people of Paris and became a major symbol of the inequality that fueled the French Revolution.