The historical marker is in French and reads:
[FR]La chute de l’empire romain et le déclin de la vie économique entraînèrent la fin de l’entretien des routes et la prédominance des voies fluviales. Sur un terrain sablonneux bordant la Seine, la grève, était débarqué l’approvisionnement des habitants de Paris. Sur cette place de Grève avaient lieu les exécutions capitales aussi bien que les réjouissances populaires, notamment les feux de la Saint-Jean. Sous Henri IV, le gibet fut remplacé par une fontaine. La guillotine y fut utilisée pour la première fois le 25 avril 1792. C’est là que se réunissaient les ouvriers sans travail, d’où l’expression « faire grève ». Jusqu’au XIXe siècle, la place de Grève représentait seulement le quart de l’actuelle place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville.
[English Translation]The fall of the Roman Empire and the decline of the economy led to the end of the road maintenance and the predominance of waterways. On a sandy soil along the Seine, the strike was landed supply the inhabitants of Paris. On the Place de Greve were conducted executions as well as popular festivities, including the fires of St. John. Under Henry IV, the gallows was replaced by a fountain. The guillotine was used for the first time April 25, 1792. Here gathered the workers without work, hence the term "strike". Until the nineteenth century, the Strand was only a quarter of the current site of the Hotel de Ville.
The following additional information is from Wikipedia (
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"The public square in the 4th arrondissement of Paris that is now the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville (City Hall Plaza) was, before 1802, called the Place de Grève. The French word grève refers to a flat area covered with gravel or sand situated on the shores or banks of a body of water. The location presently occupied by the square was the point on the sandy right bank of the river Seine where the first riverine harbor of Paris was established.
The Place de Grève
Later it was used as a public meeting-place and also as a location where unemployed people gathered to seek work. This circumstance accounts for the current French expressions, être en grève (to be on strike) and faire (la) grève (to go on strike).
However, the principal reason why the Place de Grève is remembered is that it was the site of most of the public executions in early Paris. The gallows and the pillory stood there.
The highest-profile executions took place on the grève, including the gruesome deaths of the assassins François Ravaillac, and Robert–François Damiens, as well as the bandit-rebel Guy Éder de La Fontenelle. In 1310 the Place de Grève was also the site of the execution of the beguine heretic Marguerite Porete. In the words of Victor Hugo (in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), the grève was "the symbol of medieval and ancien régime justice: brutal, corrupt, and inadequate."
In 1243 Louis IX of France ordered 24 cartloads of Talmud manuscripts to be burned at the square.
Location
The southern end of the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, the end closer to the river, is on the right-bank side of the Pont d'Arcole, which crosses eighty metres of water to reach the island, Île de la Cité, in the middle of the Seine. At this point on the riverbank, the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville is formed by the convergence of three streets: two quays on the river, Quai de l'Hôtel de Ville, and Quai de Gesvres, and the rue de Renard. The rue de Renard, which passes in front of the Paris city hall, the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, forfeits its name for one city block, adopting instead "Place de l'Hôtel de Ville" addresses."