Place des Terreaux
Central square where a checkerboard pavement and a monumental horse-drawn fountain face the historic city hall.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Place des Terreaux in Lyon opens on an afternoon in September 1642, when Henri de Cinq-Mars, the king's own favorite, was led onto a scaffold here to be executed for plotting against Cardinal Richelieu, watched by a crowd that despised the nobility. It traces the ritual around his death, including the friend who forgave him aloud beforehand, then reaches back into the square's stranger origin as marshland where the condemned and excommunicated were once buried in unconsecrated ground. You'll come away wondering what still sits beneath the checkerboard paving and the Bartholdi fountain today.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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