Place Jean Jaurès - Troyes

Since 1919, the square has been named after Jean Jaurès, an eminent French politician who was assassinated in Paris on the eve of World War I, after it was previously known as Place du marché à blé.

The grain trade, the basis of the medieval diet, was active and lucrative, which explains the presence of numerous inns and hotels around the square for several centuries, including the Hôtel du Mulet and the Hôtel des Trois Rois. But the square was also used to carry out sentences: in the 16th century, there were two pillories, where offenders were exposed to the public, and a gallows, where criminals were hanged.

The French Revolution decided that executions would be less cruel thanks to the guillotine, and it was on this square that the guillotine was erected. Among the famous condemned prisoners , history has remembered the name of Claude Gueux , who was imprisoned in Clairvaux and guillotined in 1832. Victor Hugo was furious about his execution and published a famous pamphlet against the death penalty. During a trip in 1839, he stopped here to meditate. "I thought for a long time about this poor, intelligent and noble worker, who died in this place seven years ago through the fault of society, which does not know how to educate children and how to correct people.

The large building on the edge of the square was the Bourse du Travail from 1905 to 2006. It was built in 1837 to become the "Halle à la bonneterie" (hosiery hall), where manufacturers from all over the department came to sell their products, and later to house the Troyes trade unions. The house at no. 28 was the birthplace of Édouard Herriot (1872-1957), mayor of Lyon, senator, president of the Council and president of the National Assembly.

Willem Vandenameele