By Roger Hudson, in History Today, vol. 64, issue 5 (May 2014).
“One of the entrances to the Place Vendôme at the heart of fasionable Paris has a highly professional sandbag breastwork across it, complete with embrasures for two pieces of artillery. Behind it, the centrepiece of the Place, the Column of the Grande Armée, looks as though it already has attached the cables that will shortly be used to topple it. France, or at least its capital, is in the grip of civil war….”