Place Dauphine is a square in Paris which takes its name from the dauphin, the future King Louis XIII. It is located in the 1st arrondissement, on the Île de la Cité, west of the former Palais de la Cité in Paris (France). It adjoins on its other side, at the tip of the triangle it forms, the middle of the Pont Neuf, where the equestrian statue of Henry IV faces it.
Along with Place des Vosges, Place des Victoires, Place Vendôme and Place de la Concorde, it is one of the city’s 5 royal squares.
The Place Dauphine was laid out in 1607–10, when the Place Royale was still under construction. It was among the earliest city-planning projects of Henri IV, and was on a site created from part of the western garden of the walled enclave known as the Palais de la Cité (because the Capetian kings had lived there long ago, before the Louvre was built).
There had been a pavilion, the Maison des Etuves, located in the garden’s western wall which overlooked two riverine islets, scarcely more than mudbanks at the time. One islet was incorporated into filled land which extended the Île de la Cité to the west to form the middle section, the terre-plein, of the Pont Neuf (completed in 1606) and, on the downstream side of the bridge, a platform supporting an equestrian statue of Henri IV (installed in 1614). The second islet was removed. The Place Dauphine was to occupy the western part of the garden and the vacant land which had been created between it and the bridge.
The Place Dauphine is located near the Paris Métro stations: Pont Neuf and Cité. It is served by lines 4 and 7.
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