Place Jean Jaurès

The active and lucrative grain trade, the foundation of the medieval diet, 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 capital executions would be less cruel thanks to the guillotine, which was also erected here.
Among the famous condemned prisoners, history has remembered the name of Claude Gueux, imprisoned at Clairvaux and guillotined in 1832. His execution outraged Victor Hugo, who published a famous pamphlet against the death penalty. During a trip in 1839, he stopped here to meditate. "I thought for a long time of this poor, intelligent and noble worker, who died seven years ago in this very place, through the fault of society, which knows neither how to bring up children nor how to correct men.
The large building lining the square was the Bourse du Travail from 1905 to 2006. It was built in 1837 as the "Halle à la bonneterie" (hosiery hall), where manufacturers from all over the department came to sell their products, and later became the home of the Troy trade unions.
The house at no. 28 was the birthplace of Édouard Herriot (1872-1957), who was Mayor of Lyon, Senator, President of the Council and President of the National Assembly.
Since 1919, the square has been named after Jean Jaurès, an eminent French politician, MP for Carmaux (Tarn), socialist and pacifist, who was assassinated in Paris on the eve of the First World War.