Fontaine Louvois

About

The Louvois fountain is a fountain in the middle of the square Louvois, created in 1830. This square occupies the place of a former opera, the Opera de la rue de Richelieu, built in 1792 and demolished in 1820. The square is located in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, rue Richelieu, at the entrance to the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The fountain is surrounded by the aisle Andrée-Jacob and the aisle Éveline-Garnier, two aisles of the square Louvois named in 2019 in tribute to the couple of resistance fighters who stood out in the liberation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in August 1944. Following the demolition of this opera, the square was to receive an expiatory monument, for the Duke of Berry, stabbed in 1820 by Louvel, at the end of a show. A chapel was started; The 1830 revolution suspended the project, and in 1835 the municipality, in agreement with the government, planted the place of trees, destroyed the chapel and began the erection of a fountain that first received the name of "Richelieu fountain".

Victor Hugo in Les Misérables (IV, 8, 7), traces this story. This fountain was created in 1844 by Louis Visconti at the request of Louis-Philippe. She's a tribute...