At the point where the long line of boulevards, extending for three miles from the Place de la Bastille to the Madeleine, comes to an end the road bifurcates. The Rue Royale leads in one direction towards the Place de la Concorde, the Rue Castiglione in another towards the Place Vendôme, a square, or rather an octagon, in the middle of which stands the famous column at which the typical French patriot, Le Colonel Chauvin, used to gaze with such enthusiastic admiration. [Illustration: TOP OF THE VENDÔME COLUMN.] The Place was constructed by the celebrated architect Mansard. In 1686, on the proposition of Louis XIV.'s minister, Louvois, the formation of the Place in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré was decreed "alike for the decoration of Paris and for facilitating communications in this quarter." Louvois, in the first place, purchased the Hôtel de Vendôme in the Rue Saint-Honoré, at the end of the Rue Castiglione, which, together with an adjacent convent, was pulled down. The open space thus obtained was for some time left unoccupied, the king's government being more concerned with works of war than of peace. It was originally intended to give the Place Vendôme the form of a square, with the king's library on one side, and various Government offices, together with mansions for the reception of special envoys, on the other. In carrying out his work Mansard made eight façades instead of the four first contemplated, and in the middle of the octagon he placed an equestrian statue of Louis XIV., twenty-one feet high. The Grand Monarch was attired, according to the sculptural fashion of the time, in Roman costume; and on the pedestal of the statue, which was in white marble, might be read pompous inscriptions in honour of his Majesty's victories. This statue remained on its pedestal for nearly a century. But on the 10th of August, 1792, when the Revolutionary fury was reaching its acute stage, the effigy was overturned by the people, and the name of Place Vendôme changed to Place des Piques. This eminently anarchical title was preserved until the establishment of the Empire, when Napoleon conceived the idea of the column to which the Place Vendôme now owes its chief importance.