Louvre courtyard

The Louvre is flippin’ huge. I mean, you don’t realise until you’re standing in the main courtyard or look on Google Maps and see it takes up 7 city blocks.

And not only is it huge, it’s imposing. Everything about it starting with the external architecture, is designed to drive the message home that this is the king’s world, you just live in it. Gates, extravagant decorations, all sorts of separations between the nobles and the common people, and between different classes of nobles.