Place des Victoires The Place des Victoires is a circular " place " in Paris , located a short distance northeast from the Palais Royal and straddling the border between the 1st and the 2nd arrondissements . The Place des Victoires is at the confluence of six streets : Rue de la Feuillade , Rue Vide Gousset , Rue d ' Aboukir , Rue Étienne Marcel , Rue Croix des Petits Champs , and Rue Catinat . History . At the center of the Place des Victoires is an equestrian monument in honor of King Louis XIV , celebrating the Treaties of Nijmegen concluded in 1678 - 79 . A marshal of France , François de la Feuillade , vicomte d ' Aubusson , on his own speculative initiative , demolished the old private mansions on the site . Feuillade ' s project was soon taken over by the Bâtiments du Roi , a department attached to the king ' s household , and the royal architect , Jules Hardouin Mansart , was entrusted with redesigning a grander complex of buildings , still in the form of a ring of private houses , to accommodate a majestic statue of the triumphant king . Mansart ' s conception . Mansart ' s design , of 1685 , articulated the square ' s unified façades according to a formula utilised in some Parisian " hôtels particuliers " , ( palatial private homes ) . Mansart chose colossal pilasters linking two floors , standing on a high arcaded base with rustication of the pilasters ; the façades were capped with sloping slate " mansard roof s " , punctuated by dormer windows . However , because the building work was incomplete at the time of the unveiling of the monument , the envisioned façades were painted on canvas . By 1692 , the Place des Victoires was pierced by six streets , and the circular plan functioned as a flexible joint to harmonize their various axes . The Desjardins sculpture . The original statue , of Louis XIV crowned by Fame and trampling the Triple Alliance underfoot , in gilt bronze , stood on a high square pedestal with bas - relief panels and effusively flattering inscriptions ; dejected bronze figures were seated at the corners . The sculptor was Martin Desjardins , part of the team that was working cooperatively at the Château of Versailles and its gardens . Louis XIV ' s reversals . Louis permanently abandoned Paris in 1682 , and his imperial ambitions in Europe were deflated by subsequent wars ; the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697 was termed " a humiliating disaster for the king " by the military architect Vauban . " During the course of the eighteenth century , " Rochelle Ziskin has noted , " critics would suggest that the arrogance of representation at the Place des Victoires had serious political consequences and may have been a factor in provoking war . " The grandiose memorial that had begun to embarrass Louis XIV himself would eventually be destroyed in 1792 , during the French Revolution . Modern times . In 1793 , the Place was renamed " Place des Victoires - Nationaux " ( National Victories Square ) , and a wooden pyramid was erected on the site of the destroyed statue . In 1810 , under the rule of Napoléon Bonaparte , a nude statue of the General Louis Desaix replaced the pyramid . However , following the abdication of Napoléon , the statue was taken down and its metal was used to create a new statue of Henry IV on the nearby Pont Neuf . In 1828 , the restored Bourbon king , Charles X , commissioned the current equestrian statue , which was sculpted by François Joseph Bosio . Louis XIV , dressed as a Roman emperor , sits on a proud horse rearing on its hind legs . An iron fence encircles the twelve - meter - high statue . The square today . The area surrounding the Place des Victoires is now an upmarket neighborhood . Fashion designers Kenzo and Cacharel have boutiques there , as have the ready - to - wear chains Maje , and Zadig et Voltaire . The German Forum for Art History ( Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte ) is on the Place and the French Institut national d ' histoire de l ' art is in nearby Galerie Colbert . Metro station . The Place des Victoires is :