Columns Of The Throne, Paris

Two massive, twenty-eight-meter-tall Doric columns stand at the entrance to the Avenue du Trône, marking what was once the gateway to Paris. These pillars were built between seventeen eighty-seven and seventeen eighty-eight as part of the Mur des Fermiers généraux, a wall designed by architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. The barrier served a practical purpose: it was a fiscal enclosure where tax officials collected the octroi, a duty on merchandise entering the city. While the pavilions at the base housed toll agents, the columns were intended as monumental markers for those passing through.