A Square from the Ancien Régime during the Revolution: “The Grève”
Smaller than the current Place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville, the Place de Grève was rarely empty during the Revolution! “This was where boats loaded with hay, wheat, flour, oats, barley, wine, whitewash and charcoal arrived and where business was conducted” (Encyclopédie méthodique, 1791). During the Revolution, before being the site of municipal power, the Grève was a port and a working-class area: that was also why many revolutionary events started or ended here. However, it was also the site of public executions.
Like during the Ancien Régime… but in the name of the people
Guillotine Execution of Nine Emigrés, Place de Grève, October 22-29, 1792
At the beginning of the Revolution, the Place de Grève continued to be a site of executions. On February 8, 1790, the Agasse brothers were hung here for counterfeiting money. A week later, it was the Marquis de Favras’s turn, condemned for treason against the nation. On April 25, 1792, it was here where the guillotine was used for the first time. The victim, Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier, was not decapitated for his counter-revolutionary opinions, but because he stole and assassinated a passerby. Starting in August 1792, executions were held on the Place du Carrousel and the Place de la Révolution (currently Concorde).
