In search of the original Laon

The citadel was built between 1595 and 1598 on the orders of Henri IV following his 1594 siege of the League town. To do this, two entire districts - between 2 and 300 houses, two churches and Laon's covered market - were completely razed to the ground! Note the gateway and its two bastions: they face the town, as if to keep it at bay... The gate, decorated with the king's coat of arms and bearing a dedication ("Built by Henry the Great in 1595, was restored and perfected by Louis Philippe I in 1835"), was fitted with a Poncelet drawbridge in 1847. It is said that his plans were criticized by Vauban himself, who even declared that his engineer should have been hung from the gallows!

Opened in December 2020, this play area has become a must for the many (little) knights of Laon! With its castle and wooden hut, zip-line, turnstile and sunbathing areas, it attracts families looking for fun all year round, sheltered by the ramparts on the south side of the upper town. A must-see!

The bandstand was inaugurated with great fanfare on 16 June 1877 and remains one of the most notable examples of urban creation in Laon at the start of the Third Republic, allowing the general public to listen to all kinds of musical repertoires, from military music to operetta via ‘grande musique’. If we stick to the definition of a bandstand, i.e. ‘a pavilion open on all sides, set up in a garden or on a public promenade’, then this is exactly what we have here, as the one in Laon is located just a few metres from the Porte d'Ardon, on the Promenade de la Couloire at the foot of the southern ramparts... And the location was not chosen at random, offering superb views over the Ardon plain and the hills of the Laonnois region, as well as the Saint-Vincent reservoir...

An empty pedestal, however: since 1933, it has normally housed a statue representing Jean Mathieu Philibert Sérurier (1742-1819), Marshal of France. But shortly after arriving in Laon in May 1940, German troops had it removed from its pedestal and melted down a second time (as the original, installed in the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in the early 20th century, had already been melted down during the First World War...).