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A river trip on the Seine is equally popular in
winter and summer.
The Pont des Arts (right)
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Past the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame on the
Île de la Cité
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The Île de la Cité is where Paris
began. It was settled in around 300 BC by a
Celtic tribe, the Parisii, and the town that grew
up was known as Lutetia. In 52 BC, it was overrun
by Julius Caesar's troops.
A natural defensive site commanding a major
east–west river trade route, it was an
obvious candidate for a bright future – the
Romans garrisoned it and laid out one of their
standard military town plans. While they never
attached any great political importance to the
town, they endowed it with an administrative
centre, constructing a palace-fortress that
became the stronghold of the Merovingian kings in
508, and later of the counts of Paris, who in 987
became kings of France.
The Frankish kings set about transforming the
old Gallo-Roman fortress into a splendid palace,
of which the Sainte Chapelle and the Conciergerie
prison survive today. At the other end of the
island, they erected their most famous monument,
the great cathedral of Notre-Dame. By the early
thirteenth century the small Île de la
Cité teemed with life, somehow managing to
accommodate twelve parishes, not to mention
numerous chapels and monasteries. Such was the
level of activity that monks at one of the
monasteries, the Saint-Magloire, found the island
too noisy, moving out in 1138 to quieter premises
on the right bank.
Disembarking at the Île de las Citeé
a short walk leads to Notre Dame
(left)....
...and the Palais de Justice (right and
below)
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The Conciergerie, Paris's oldest prison,
(right) is where Marie-Antoinette and, in
their turn, the leading figures of the
Revolution, were incarcerated before execution.
Entering the Conciergerie, one immediately finds
oneself in the vaulted, late-Gothic Salle des
Gens d'armes, one of the few remaining vestiges
of the old Capetian kings' palace and the oldest
surviving medieval hall in Europe. This splendid
and impressive room, consisting of three rows of
columns and four naves, was, before its
transformation into a prison, the canteen and
recreation room of the royal household
staff.
The far end is separated off by an iron grille;
during the Revolution this area was reserved for
prisoners who couldn't afford to bribe a guard
for their own cell and were known as the pailleux
because all they had to sleep on was hay
(paille).
Beyond is a corridor, where prisoners were
allowed to wander freely, and rooms, such as the
"salle de toilette" where the condemned prisoners
had their hair cropped and shirt collars ripped
in preparation for the guillotine. On the upper
storey is a reconstruction of Marie-Antoinette's
cell.
For further pages depicting our Paris visit
please click the 'Next' button at the bottom of
the page.
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