CARRIERE SQUARE

The need to modernise the ramparts mid 16th century led to an extension of the town toward the east and thus the creation of a new square, the " Place Neuve de la Carriere ". " Carriere " was the old French word for a tilt-yard where jousting and tournaments took place in the Middle Ages. The famous 17th century Lorraine engravers Jacques Callot and Claude Deruet depicted the square in a number of their prints.

At the end of the 17TH century that the French, who had occupied the town, established a means of communication with the New Town, by opening a gate in the walls calling it the Royal Gate in honour of Louis XIV. But it was only during the reign of Stanislas that the link between the Old Town and the New Town took a concrete form. The square is closed to the north by the Palais du Gouverneur -the former Palais de l'Intendance- set in a semicircle of columns and to the south by a triumphal arch.

At the south end, opposite the Beauvau-Craon Mansion by Boffrand, Emmanuel Héré built a copy of it for the Bourse (the stock exchange). Starting from these two buildings, two long rows of houses with a few rocaille decorations stretch along either side of the square as far as two identical houses which in turn are connected up to the colonnade at the north end.