In the spring of 1965, a young boy, aged ten, stood on the Place de la Concorde in Paris and looked around at this giant space that now contained an Egyptian obelisk, two big fountains and swirling mass of automobiles going around in a circle.
He was trying to imagine what this site might have looked like in 1789 and throughout the French Revolution and the period of time known as “The Terror”. He knew that this was the place where the guillotine had been erected and many people, including the King and Queen of France, had been executed.
As he stood there with his parents, he asked a very simple question; “Where did they put the guillotine?” No one knew the answer.
For me, that started a life-long fascination with history and in particular, European history. I was fortunate to have grown up in Europe (Holland and Germany) during the 1960’s. Today, my wife and I love to travel around Europe. We are visitors that like to see original buildings, places where the buildings stood and things like that. We want to know if the roof is the original one, is the wallpaper original or recreated. When we were in Shakespeare’s home, the docent told us that one of the rooms we were walking through had the original floor that Shakespeare walked on. We like that kind of stuff.
I think that there are a lot of people who travel, both domestically and internationally, that enjoy and approach history like us through their travels.
This is the reason why I am writing a book called “Where Did They Put The Guillotine…A Walking Tour of Revolutionary Paris (1789-1794)”. Read More Where Did They Put the Guillotine?
