The Vendome Column is visible from the terrace of the Le Meurice Hotel. No less than 176 interior steps lead to the foot of the statue of Napoleon I, perched 44 metres high. Inspired by the column of the Emperor Trajan erected in the centre of the forum in Rome, the First Consul Bonaparte decided to build an identical column on the Place Vendôme, on the site of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV, destroyed during the Revolution. In January 1806, Napoleon I dedicated the monument to his victorious Grande Armée at Austerlitz and had the cannons taken from the enemy melted down to make the spiral of 425 bronze bas-reliefs that compose it.