FREEDOM SQUARE

Named Place du Marché-Neuf (New Market Square) at the beginning of the 12th century, the square was an economic lung of the city. In 1307, it became the Place du Pilori because it was there that criminals were exposed to the crowd, in this neighborhood full of magistrates' mansions. It owes its current name to the Bonapartist general from Brittany who, on October 5, 1822, was guillotined there while shouting "Long live Liberty". It is in his memory that the square was renamed and that the Masonic Lodge erected a statue of Liberty in 1903, a reduced copy of the one in New York.