The park at the square’s centre is called Square Thomas Jefferson and was, until 1888, home to a bronze model of the Statue of Liberty. This was a fundraising ploy to try and help finance the real one in New York, which is a symbol of French-American friendship. Overlooking this leafy square at No. 11 sits the Musée du Cristal de Baccarat. This is where the Baccarat crystal company, founded in Lorraine in 1764, exhibits some of its 1,200 articles. Items include pieces that were made for some of Europe’s royal households.
Musée du Cristal de Baccarat
Opening times: 10am–6.30pm Mon–Sat
Website:
www.baccarat.frTel: 01. 40 22 11 00
Did You Know?
Place des États-Unis originally had another name, Place de Bitche, which honoured a village in northeast France that had resisted the Prussian invasion of 1870. When American Ambassador Levi P. Morton established his country’s embassy here he asked if the name could be changed because of its unfortunate similarity to the English word for a female dog.
Link to the Champs-Elysées walk:
Continue up Avenue d’Iéna.
Musée du Cristal de Baccarat
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