Thursday: June 3
Palmier Fountain / Fountaine des Innocents / Tour Saint-Jacques (Saint James)
The
large Palmier Fountain holds court over the Place du Châtelet, an historic
square in the middle of Paris. The Palmier Fountain was built in 1808 to
commemorate Napoleon’s numerous lets-get-out-there-and-meet people exploits.
The Fontaine des Innocents (Fountain of the Innocents) is
named after the church cemetery "Église des Innocents" which was named after the
innocent children killed in Judea by Herodes. The fountain is adorned with
nymphs, angels and naked, plump little boys with wings. The fountain was
designed by prominent Renaissance architect Pierre Lescot. Pierre spent most of
his life working on the Louvre. The fountain was created between 1546 and 1549
making it over 450 years old and it is the last remaining Renaissance fountain
in Paris.
In 1788 the Église des Innocents and its cemetery were to be
replaced by a market. The fountain was relocated to the Square des Innocents. A
fourth side was added to the fountain by Augustine Pajou. This was necessary as
there were originally only three sides because the fountain was set against a
wall.The Fontaine des Innocents was renovated in 1856 adding the water basins at
its base.
Dating back to the 16th century the tower of Saint James (Tour
Saint-Jacques) is all that remains of a butchers church (Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie).
Yes, no kidding, wealthy French butchers had their own church.
Fontaine du Palmier
The Fontaine du Palmier (1806-1808) is a monumental fountain located in the
Place du Châtelet, between the Théâtre du Châtelet et the Théâtre de la Ville,
in the First Arrondissement of Paris. It was designed to provide fresh drinking
water to the population of the neighborhood and to commemorate the victories of
Napoleon Bonaparte. It is the largest of the fountains still existing built
during Napoleon's reign.
The Fountain de Palmier was one of a series of fifteen fountains commissioned by
Napoleon in 1806 to his minister of the Interior, Emmanuel Cretet. It was
designed by the engineer François-Jean Bralle, who was in charge of the Paris
fountains and water supply during the First Empire.. It was finished in 1808.
The column, modeled after a Roman triumphal column, takes its name from the
sculpted palm leaves at the top, commemorating Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign. The
bands of bronze on the column pay tribute to Napoleon's victories at the siege
of Danzig (1807, Prussia), the Battle of Ulm (1805, Austria), the Battle of
Marengo (1800, Italy), the Battle of the Pyramids (1798, Egypt), and the Battle
of Lodi (1796,Italy).
At the top of the column is a statue of Victory made of gilded bronze, carrying
the laurels of victory. The statue is the work of the sculptor Louis-Simon
Boizot. The present statue is a copy; the original is in the courtyard of the
Carnavalet Museum of the history of Paris.
Around the base of the column are four statues representing Vigilance, Justice,
Strength and Prudence, also made by Boizot. The lower basin of the fountain,
designed by architect Gabriel Davioud, was added to the fountain in 1858 during
the reign of Emperor Louis Napoleon. At that time the base was also decorated
with statues of Egyptian sphinxes spouting streams of water, sculpted by
Henri-Alfred Jacquemart.
The fountain was listed as an historic monument of France in 1952.
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Fontaine des Innocents
The Fontaine des Innocents is a monumental public fountain located in the Les
Halles district in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Originally called
the Fountain of the Nymphs, it was constructed between 1547 and 1550 by
architect Pierre Lescot and sculptor Jean Goujon in the new style of the French
Renaissance. It is the oldest monumental fountain in Paris.
The fountain was commissioned as part of the decoration of the city to
commemorate the solemn royal entry of King Henry II into Paris in 1549. Artists
were commissioned to construct elaborate monuments, mostly temporary, along his
route, from the Port Saint-Denis to the palais de la Cité, passing by le
Châtelet, the pont Notre-Dame and the cathedral. The fountain was placed on the
site of an earlier fountain dating to the reign of Philip II of France, against
the wall of the Cemetery of the Innocents, at the corner of rue Saint Denis
(where the King's procession passed) and rue aux Fers (today's rue Berger), with
two facades on one street, one facade on the other. It was meant to be not only
a fountain but also a grand reviewing stand for local notables; it resembled the
walls of a large residence, with water taps along the street at the street
level, and stairway up to the loggia on the upper level, where officials stood
on the balcony to greet the King. Its original name was the Fountain of the
Nymphs.
Once the procession had passed, the structure became a simple water fountain for
the neighborhood, with taps, ornamented with lion heads, permanently trickling
water.3] The upper floor of the fountain was eventually turned into a residence,
with windows and a chimney.
In 1787, for sanitary reasons, the cemeteries of Paris were moved outside the
city walls, and the former cemetery of the Church of the Saints-Innocents,
against whose wall the fountain stood, was transformed into a market square, the
Marché des Innocents. The fountain was scheduled for destruction. It was saved
largely by the efforts of writer Quatremere de Quincy, who wrote a letter to the
Journal de Paris urging the preservation of "A masterpiece of French sculpture."
The fountain was moved to the middle of a large basin in the market, raised on a
stone pedestal decorated with four lions and four basins. The sculptor Augustin
Pajou was commissioned to create a fourth facade for the fountain, in the same
style as the other three, so that it could be free-standing.
Because of the poor water supply system of Paris, the fountain produced only a
small flow of water. Under Napoleon Bonaparte, a new aqueduct was constructed
from the River Ourcq, and finally the fountain gushed water, in such abundance
that it threatened the sculptural decoration. The smaller bas-reliefs at the
base of the fountain were removed in 1810 and placed in the Musée du Louvre in
1824.
In 1858, during the Second French Empire of Louis Napoleon, the fountain was
moved one more time to its present location on a more modest pedestal in the
middle of the square; and six basins of pouring water, one above the other, were
added on each facade.
Pierre Lescot (1510-1578), the architect of the fountain, was responsible for
introducing classical models and French Renaissance architecture into Paris.
Francis I named him chief architect of the Palais du Louvre, and over the
following years he transformed the building from a medieval castle into a
Renaissance palace. He worked together with Jean Goujon on the decoration of two
facades of the Cour Carrée of the Louvre.
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Saint-Jacques Tower
The tower's rich decoration reflects the wealth of its patrons, the wholesale
butchers of the nearby Les Halles market. The masons in charge were Jean de
Felin, Julien Ménart and Jean de Revier. It was built in 1509 to 1523, during
the reign of King Francis I. With a dedication to Saint James the Great, the
ancient church and its landmark tower welcomed pilgrims setting out on the road
that led to Tours and headed for the way of St James, which led to the major
pilgrimage destination of Sant'Iago de Compostela. A relic of the saint
preserved in the church linked it the more strongly and in modern times
occasioned its listing in 1998 as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO among the
sites and structures marking the chemins de Compostelle, the pilgrimage routes
in France that led like tributaries of a great stream headed towards Santiago in
the northwest of Spain.
The church, with the exception of the tower, was demolished in 1797;
preservation of the tower was a condition of the contract by which the church
was bought for the value of its building materials. In 1824 it was being used as
a shot tower to make small shot. It was repurchased by the City of Paris in 1836
and declared a Monument Historique in 1862. A statue of the saint was installed
on the top of the tower during the 19th century.
During the Second Empire, the architect Théodore Ballu restored the tower,
placing it on a pedestal and designing a small city park around it. This
coincided with the construction of the rue de Rivoli and the avenue Victoria
nearby, requiring huge quantities of earth to be removed to ensure the rue de
Rivoli a smooth flat path. The pedestal allowed the tower to retain its original
elevation: nowadays, the change in ground level can best be appreciated in rue
St-Bon, just northeast of the tower, where a staircase leads up to the original
street level at rue de la Verrerie.
A statue of Blaise Pascal is located at the base of the tower, commemorating the
experiments on atmospheric pressure, though it is debated whether they were
performed here or at the church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. A meteorological
laboratory is also installed at the top of the tower.
The tower inspired Alexandre Dumas to write the play La tour
Saint-Jacques-de-la-boucherie in 1856. Nicolas Flamel, a patron of the church,
was buried under its floor.
The tower has been surrounded by scaffolding and obscured by sheeting for some
years as surveyors investigate the condition of the stone. Recent findings show
that most of the stone and its ornamentation genuinely originates from the
late-medieval era of the tower's construction, and was not added by the
19th-century restorers. Unfortunately, the survey also indicates serious
cracking. The top three quarters of sheeting was taken down in March 2008,
revealing a renovated upper section of the tower. From October 2008 to February
2009, the scaffolds and sheeting have been completely removed and the
surrounding park's landscaping was being restored. Finally, on the 18 April
2009, the park was re-opened to the French public
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