[Footnote 76: French order of merit founded by Napoleon in 1802. The emblem of the order is a five-rayed star of white enamel edged with gold, bearing on one side the image of the republic, with the inscription, _République Française_, and on the other side two flags, with the motto, _Honneur et Patrie_. It is crowned by a wreath of oak and laurel, and is hung from a red ribbon.] [Footnote 77: _Bo-hē´mi-a_, a kingdom in the north-west of the Austrian Empire. It is almost square in shape, and is shut in by lofty mountains. It is mainly drained by the Moldau, a tributary of the Elbe.] [Footnote 78: _Sā´do-wa_, village in Bohemia, 8 miles north-west of Königgrätz (on the Elbe).] [Footnote 79: _Ker´nig-grāts_, town of Bohemia, on the Elbe, 65 miles east of Prague, the capital.] [Footnote 80: Son of the Emperor William I., born at Potsdam in 1831, and on the death of his father in 1888 became the Emperor Frederick III.] [Footnote 81: _Kēl_, seaport of Prussia, on a bay in the Baltic, near the Baltic end of the great Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, and 70 miles by rail north of Hamburg. It is the chief naval station of the German Empire.] [Illustration: Place de la Concorde.] CHAPTER VIII. PREPARING FOR WAR. The finest of all the squares of Paris is the Place de la Concorde.[82] Let us stand in the middle of this square and look around. To the west we see a long avenue of chestnut trees, the Champs Elysées;[83] to the north we catch a glimpse of the Madeleine,[84] one of the most famous of all the Parisian churches; to the south, across the river, is the noble building in which the French Members of Parliament (Deputies) meet; and to the east we see the terraces and trees of the Garden of the Tuileries,[85] leading by the pond on which children sail their toy yachts to the Louvre Museum. If we stroll in the park of the Champs Elysées, we shall be sure to see roundabouts and swings, and hear the squeak of our old friend Punch, whom the French children call Guignol.[86] The Place de la Concorde is very bright and gay now, and does not in the least suggest sad scenes to your mind. But it was here in January 1793 that the guillotine[87] was set up, and hundreds of the nobility and gentry of France were executed. Louis XVI. and his queen, Marie Antoinette, here saw the light of the sun for the last time before the cruel axe descended, and all was over. The square was then known as the Place de la Révolution.