Place de la Bourse

This guide to Place de la Bourse in Bordeaux starts with Victor Hugo sizing up the square, then turns to the men who actually built it: bronze caster Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who spent the seventeen-forties casting an equestrian statue of Louis the Fifteenth for its center, and the sculptors Van der Woort and Claude Francin, who carved the gables still flanking you. You'll hear what happened to Lemoyne's king once revolution reached the city, and why only the stone carvings made it through. Look up at those two gables while you listen for the clue to who outlasted whom.