General view
by BLONDEL, François, Photo
In eighteenth-century Paris the gates of the city were handled with dignity. After the Peace of Aachen (1670), a long promenade was planned to run from the Porte Saint-Antoine to the future Porte Saint-Martin built by Pierre Bullet in 1674. Fran�ois Blondel designed and built the 22-meter high Porte Saint-Denis. It marked the entrance to a particularly busy avenue, and was decorated with reliefs showing the crossing of the Rhine, glorifying the monarch.