Till the time of Louis XVI. the history of the Hotel de Ville was entirely
local; after that it became the history of France. It was there that Louis
XVI. received the tri-colored cockade from Bailly, Mayor of Paris, July
17, 1789; and there, in the chamber called, from its hangings, Le Cabinet
Vert, that Robespierre was arrested, in the name of the Convention, during
one of the meetings of the Commune, July 27, 1794. After the fall of
Robespierre it was seriously proposed to pull down the Hotel de Ville,
because it had been his last asylum--"Le Louvre de Robespierre." It was
only saved by the common-sense of Leonard Bourdon.
But most of all, in the popular recollection, is the Hotel de Ville
connected with public fetes--with those on the second marriage of Napoleon
I. (1810), on the entry of Louis XVIII. (1814), on the coronation of
Charles X. (1825), on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans (1837), on the
visits of different foreign potentates to Napoleon III. Here also was the
Republic proclaimed, September 4, 1870.
It was in one of the windows of the Hotel de Ville that Louis Philippe
embraced Lafayette (August, 1830) in sight of the people, to evince the
union of the July monarchy with the bourgeoisie.
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