Tag: Conciergerie

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Gargoyles and Grotesques

Chimera at Notre-Dame de Paris. Photo by Jawed Karim (2014). PD-CCA Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Wikimedia Commons.
Chimera at Notre-Dame de Paris. Photo by Jawed Karim (2014). PD-CCA Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Wikimedia Commons.

One of the icons of Paris and probably one of the first stops for a first-time visitor is Notre-Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) or simply, Notre-Dame. It is located on the Île de la Cité, an island in the Seine, and the historic center of the city. What you see is a beautiful and clean gothic cathedral standing in this marvelous public square. The sun shines down on you and you can see both the Right and Left Banks on opposite sides of the Seine. You can move around relatively easily on either side of the ancient street that bisects the island from north to south: Boulevard du Justice. Prior to 1858, none of this was true.

Medieval Île de la Cité

During the time Notre-Dame was being constructed (1163–1345) the island was a maze of densely populated working-class houses, churches (twenty-seven of them), and narrow, muddy, winding streets. A new east-west road had to be built (c. 1160) to reach the front of Notre-Dame to allow for delivery of construction materials. It was the widest road in Paris at that time: 16 feet. Read More Gargoyles and Grotesques

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The Rumble of the Tumbrel

As you know, the title of one of my books will be “Where Did They Put the Guillotine?” It’s about buildings, places, sites and people significant to the French Revolution. I’ll take you on walking tours of Paris and show you these sites. One of the walking tours will be entitled: “The Rumble of the Tumbrel: Marie Antoinette’s Last Ride.”

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The steps leading up to the Cour du Mai where the carts would wait for the prisoners (photo by Dan Owen)

So on our recent trip to Paris, we decided to walk the exact route that Marie Antoinette’s tumbrel (i.e., cart) took to the guillotine.

We began at the Conciergerie, the former medieval palace turned prison. Prisoners were brought here from other prisons scattered around Paris. This was their last stop before getting into the tumbrels that would take them to the guillotine. A typical stay was one or two nights. Marie Antoinette was an exception as she spent over two months in this prison. Once the bell rang (it is still there), the condemned prisoners would congregate in the “Corner of the Twelve” before being loaded into the carts (each cart could hold twelve people ergo the name of the segregated courtyard).

Read More The Rumble of the Tumbrel