This "place" owes its original official recognition to letters patent dated 9 August 1760, which applied to the part of the site that was located inside the old Wall of the Farmers-General, i.e., the northeastern portion of the present Place Denfert-Rochereau. An ordinance of the Bureau of Finances, dated 16 January 1789, recognized the southwestern portion of the "place", the part outside the wall, as part of Paris. The opening in the wall itself, which permitted entry or exit from Paris, was commonly called the Barrière d’Enfer. It is mentioned in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo: Here, astride the opening in the wall, the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux constructed two tollhouses to be used for the collection of the octroi, a local tariff levied on products entering Paris. At the center of the present square, these two pavilions once framed the opening in the wall, and now, oddly, the entrance to the underworld of the catacombs lies next to the western one of them, the pavilion at the barrière d'Enfer.
Former name
Traditionally called by the rather unattractive name of Place d’Enfer, the square had the name of Denfert-Rochereau ascribed to it through a sort of "municipal pun". The Franco-Prussian War had demoralized the French populace, and there was widespread damage all over northeastern France and to Paris itself. Anxious to put a positive spin on the defeat, the French authorities were looking for heroes to glorify. Denfert-Rochereau was a courageous man and an authentic hero, but whether his grandiose nickname, "The Lion of Belfort", was deserved is a matter of some debate. Nonetheless, since "Denfert" is pronounced exactly the same as "d'Enfer", this coincidence was too perfect for the mairie to ignore. They renamed the square Place Denfert-Rochereau, and they could plausibly deny that they were ignoring Paris's ancient traditions in so doing. The name has remained Place Denfert-Rochereau ever since.
Places of interest
The main square, Place Denfert-Rochereau, is planted with trees, mostly horse chestnuts, maples, and locusts, and there are three named green spaces within it as well: Square Abbé Migne, Square Jacques Antoine, and Square Claude Nicolas Ledoux. At the center of the square, in the midst of the traffic circulation, is a one-third-scale replica of the Lion of Belfort statue by Bartholdi, symbolizing the courage of the resistance raised by Colonel Denfert-Rochereau at Belfort. In the garden to one side is a monument by Jean Boucher commemorating Ludovic Trarieux. The entrance to the Paris Catacombs is located next to a handsome stone building with three romanesque arches across its facade, on the odd-numbered side of Avenue du Colonel-Henri-Rol-Tanguy This entrance is directly across the street from an identical even-numbered building that houses the Directorate of Roads and Transport. These two buildings, classified as historical monuments, are the pavilions of the old Barrière d'Enfer, where taxes were collected on goods entering Paris. They are built to the design of the 19th-century architect, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, whose work can be found all over the city. This part of the square has enveloped the site of the Barrière d'Enfer, as well as part of the boulevards d'Enfer and Saint-Jacques, and a part of the boulevards Montrouge and Arcueil, roads which, at one time, led to those two southern suburbs but no longer exist.
