Place de la Concorde has witnessed much of France's more corpulent history: like Red and Tiannamen Squares it has hosted events of varying states of mind but always in profound magnitudes; from revolution to celebration, the footsteps of over two centuries and the theatre of eclectic human experience echoes in its paving stones.

The apparent incongruity but artistic coup de grace of the Obelisk, Paris' most ancient monument dating back to the reign of Egypt's Ramses II in 12 B.C. has presided over the Place since 1836, one of several statuary tenants and a gift to Louis Phillipe from Mehemet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt, is surrounded by the added luminescence of lamplights evoking Lautrec's Parisian era.

And then like the eighteenth century dowager of style that she is, the regal Hotel Le Crillon sits at number 10, place de la Concorde a monument to the prevailing graciousness of an unprecedented time in artistic and architectural excellence. A magnificent palace built of an unbridled love for a King, it has weathered the activities of the infamous Place for two hundred years, from revolutionary purges to the motorised chaos of hundreds of cars whizzing down the Champs Elysees past her door. As always, Paris' grand hotel remains nonplussed and ever protective of her tenants.