A Walk Around Square du Vert-Galant, Paris

The site is located at the western tip of the island of Ile de la Cite', in the Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois district of the 1st arrondissement. The level of the square is located seven meters lower than the current level of other parts of the island, which corresponds to the level it once had. The low overhang of the square in relation to the Seine explains that it is flooded or even completely submerged during the most important floods of the river.
It is served by the line M7 at the Pont-Neuf metro station.
The square owes its name to Henry IV, nicknamed the "Green-Galant" because of his many mistresses despite his advanced age. The square is dominated by an equestrian statue of Henry IV resting on the Pont Neuf (which separates the square from the rest of the island).
It was created by the meeting of several small islands including the island of the Jews, where the last Templars were burned, and the island of the Patriarch. A commemorative plaque reminds us that it was here that, on 18 March 1314, the execution of the "last grand master of the Order of the Temple", Jacques de Molay, took place at the stake.
The Square was dedicated to baths around 1765, then to a concert café in 1865. It was destroyed by a flood in 18791,.
In 1884, the state ceded the land to the city of Paris.
In 2007, the square was awarded the "green green spaces" label by ECOCERT.
You can see tuberculated swans, a few ducks such as fuligule milouin and fuligule morillon, shepherdesses of streams or knights guignette, castagneous grebes and grebes. In winter, there are also white-fronted macro scarves, water hens, silver gulls and laughing gulls.
In 2009, it is home to a large population of urban murids.
In 1804, the architect Guy de Gisors laid out a project to create baths that would have been called "Napoleon I". It was a large building with four floors of arcades and two wings in return of square in the middle of which the waters of a fountain would have sprung. The building was to house a hundred and seventy-six bathing cabins. There were also plans to build an outdoor pool for bathers, which would have been accessed by a double-changing staircase. The emperor did not act on this proposal. On the other hand, in 1810 the latter launched an open competition under a decree signed at the camp of Schonbrunn: it was to raise, on the full land of the Pont Neuf, a granite obelisk of Cherbourg, with an inscription "Emperor Napoleon to the French people"; the obelisk was to be 180 feet high.

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