Thursday: June 10
Palais de Justice /
La Conciergerie
The Palais de Justice is the main facility in a compound with the Concierferie and Saint-Chapelle. Is is where the courts are now. A pretty building, only a small portion of it is truly open for tourists. But you can, and we did, go in and sit through a court session. Like American courts, you must be quiet and cannot take pictures, but it is open. The judges and lawyers sill wear funny wigs....
Museum to the guillotine where many of its invited guests
ended their day. Prior to it Conciergerie was residence to the kings concierge.
A midevil structure, the grand hall is just immense. The Conciergerie was the
"antechamber to the guillotine" during the French Revolution Reign of Terror.
This was the place to lose your head. Few left with it still on top of their
shoulders.
The Assemblée National was first built as a palace for Louis
XIV's daughter in 1728. Since then Napoleon has had the palace renovated, in
particular focusing on its facade, its main attraction.
Palais de Justice
The Palais de Justice, located in the Île de la Cité in central Paris, France,
is built on the site of the former royal palace of Saint Louis, of which the
Sainte Chapelle remains. Thus the justice of the state has been dispensed at
this site since medieval times. From the sixteenth century to the French
Revolution this was the seat of the Parlement de Paris.
It houses various courts:
The Paris court of large claims (tribunal de grande
instance) and the associated Paris correctional court; as of 2007 there are
discussions so as to their possible relocation in another location;
The Paris Court of Appeal;
The French Cour de cassation (highest jurisdiction in
the French judicial order).
Click here to see other pictures.
Click here to see other pictures.
La Conciergerie
La Conciergerie is a former royal palace and prison. It is part of the larger
complex known as the Palais de Justice, which is still used for judicial
purposes. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were taken from La
Conciergerie to be executed on the guillotine at a number of locations around
Paris.
The Île de la Cité was occupied by the Romans during late antiquity. Later, the
west part of the island was the site of a Merovingian palace; and from the 10th
to the 14th centuries was the seat of the medieval Kings of France. Under Louis
IX (Saint Louis) (1226–1270) and Philip IV (Philip the Fair) (1284–1314) the
Merovingian palace was extended and more heavily fortified.
Louis IX added the remarkable Sainte-Chapelle and associated galleries, while
Philippe IV created the towered facade on the river side and a large hall. Both
are excellent examples of French religious and secular architecture of the
period. The Sainte-Chapelle, built in the French royal style, was erected to
house the crown of thorns brought back from the crusades, and to serve as royal
chapel. The "Grande-Salle" (Great Hall) was one of the largest in Europe, and
its lower story, known as "La salle des gens" survives: 64 m long, 27.5 m wide
and 8.5 m high. It was used as a dining-room for the 2,000 staff who worked in
the palace. It was heated with four large fireplaces and lit by many windows,
now blocked up. It was also used for royal banquets and judicial proceedings.
The neighboring Salle des Gardes was used as an antechamber to the Great Hall
immediately above, where the king held his lit de justice (a session of
parliament in the king's presence).
The early Valois kings continued to improve the palace in the 1300s, but Charles
V abandoned the palace in 1358, moving across the river to the Louvre. The
palace continued to serve an administrative function, and still included the
chancellery and French Parliament. In 1391 the building was converted for use as
a prison. Its prisoners were a mixture of common criminals and political
prisoners. In common with other prisons of the time, the treatment of prisoners
was very dependent on their wealth, status and connections. The very wealthy or
influential usually got their own cells with a bed, desk and materials for
reading and writing. Less well-off prisoners could afford to pay for simply
furnished cells called pistoles, which would be equipped with a rough bed and
perhaps a table. The poorest, known as the pailleux from the hay (paille) that
they slept on, would be confined to dark, damp, vermin-infested cells called
oubliettes (literally "forgotten places"). In keeping with the name, they were
left to die in conditions that were ideal for the plague and other infectious
diseaser which were rife in the insanitary conditions of the prison.
Three towers survive from the medieval Conciergerie: the Caesar Tower, named in
honor of the Roman Emperors; the Silver Tower, so named for its (alleged) use as
the store for the royal treasure; and the Bonbec ("good beak") Tower, which
obtained its name from the torture chamber that it housed, in which victims were
encouraged to "sing". The building was extended under later kings with France's
first public clock being installed around 1370. The current clock dates from
1535. The concierge or keeper of the royal palace, gave the place its eventual
name.
The Conciergerie thus already had an unpleasant reputation before it became
internationally famous as the "antechamber to the guillotine" during the Reign
of Terror, the bloodiest phase of the French Revolution. It housed the
Revolutionary Tribunal as well as up to 1,200 male and female prisoners at a
time. The Tribunal sat in the Great Hall between 2 April 1793 and 31 May 1795
and sent nearly 2,600 prisoners to the guillotine. Its rules were simple. Only
two outcomes existed — a declaration of innocence or a death sentence — and in
most cases the latter was chosen. The most famous prisoners (and victims)
included Queen Marie Antoinette, the poet André Chénier, Charlotte Corday,
Madame Élisabeth, Madame du Barry and the Girondins, who were condemned by
Georges Danton, who was in turn condemned by Robespierre, who was himself
condemned and executed in a final bout of bloodletting. En route to the tumbrils,
the victims walked through the Salle Saint-Louis, (Saint Louis Room), which
acquired the nickname of the Salle des Perdus, the "Room of the Doomed".
After the Restoration of the Bourbons in the 19th century, the Conciergerie
continued to be used as a prison for high-value prisoners — most notably the
future Napoleon III. Marie Antoinette's cell was converted into a chapel
dedicated to her memory. The Conciergerie and Palais de Justice underwent major
rebuilding in the mid-19th century, totally altering their external appearance.
While the building looks like a brooding medieval fortress, this appearance
actually only dates from about 1858. A description from 1825 gives an impression
of the structure before the rebuilding:
The buildings which form this prison still retain the hideous character of
feudal times. The préau presents a kind of area or court, one hundred and eighty
feet in length by sixty in breadth, round which is a gallery leading to the
cells, and communicating by stairs to the upper storeys. It was partly
constructed in the thirteenth century, and partly rebuilt in modern times, and
is ten or twelve feet below the level of the adjacent streets; it serves as a
promenade for the prisoners. The dungeons, which have not been used for the last
thirty years, are twenty-three feet in length by eleven and a half in height.
The Conciergerie was decommissioned in 1914 and was opened to the public as a
national historical monument. It is today a popular tourist attraction, although
only a relatively small part of the building is open to public access — much of
it is still used for the Paris law courts.
Click here to see other pictures.
Click here to see other pictures.
L'Assemblee Nationale
The Palais Bourbon was
built at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Louise Françoise de Bourbon,
the legitimized daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. The work was
entrusted to the Italian architect Giardini and approved by Hardouin Mansart;
construction started in 1722. After Giardini's death in 1724 work was continued
under Jacques Gabriel and finished in 1728. The palace was enlarged and
transformed in 1765 by the prince de Condé, grandson of the duchesse de Bourbon.
Soufflot, who directed the work, introduced a degree of austerity into the
original plans of Mansart and Gabriel.
At the Revolution the
palace was declared national property. It was little used at first but in 1795
was assigned to the Council of the Five Hundred, which met there from 1798. The
chamber built for the Council was the first in France to be used for a
legislative assembly on a long-term basis. It was occupied by the Legislative
Body during the Consulate and the Empire. Fontanes, President of the Legislative
Body, had the present north front of the palace built in the style of the church
of the Madeleine.
At the time of the
Restoration, the Chamber of Deputies rented a large part of the palace from the
prince de Condé upon his return to the country. The palace was bought from his
son in 1827. The Chamber of Deputies was then able to undertake major work -
reconstruction of the chamber, rearrangement of access corridors and adjoining
rooms, installation of the library in a suitable setting. The decoration of the
library and one of the salons was entrusted to Delacroix.
While this work was going
on the Chamber of Deputies met provisionally in the Salle de Bois. This was
where Louis Philippe swore to uphold the Constitutional Charter on 9 August
1830.
Click here to see other pictures.
Click here to see other pictures.