Palais de Justice

We have already visited the Pont Neuf and Place Dauphine, which are on the extreme western end of Ile de la Cité. Just behind Place Dauphine you will find the Palais de Justice. (I guess that all these names need no translation.)

Ile de la Cité was the original centre of Paris and where you now find the Palais de Justice were previously situated the seat of the government during the Roman times, the Royal Palace during the medieval times and then later the “Parlement de Paris” (developed out of the previous council of the Kings), a prison and a Hall of Justice. From those times remain not so much; most of the present Palais has been built during the 17th and 18th century, but there are some nice remains including the Conciergerie (prison) with its old towers and the Sainte Chapelle (Royal church). I will come back to these in some following posts.

I have made a comparison between Ile de la Cité in 1552 and today (Google). The scale on the old map is perhaps not perfect, but it gives us an image of what the island looked like those days. Pont Neuf and Place Dauphine were created only some 50 years after this map.First some general views of the Palais - which today is the seat of local and national courts of justice including the highest court of appeal. It covers some 200 thousand sq.m. (50 acres), has 24 km (15 miles) of corridors, 7000 doors… It houses some 4000 magistrates and civil servants, not mentioning the thousands of more or less voluntary daily visitors.The clock you see in the top is from 1585 (it works) and it replaces what was the oldest public clock in Paris which was put there some 200 years before. You find it on the square tower called “Tour d’Horloge”, the Clock Tower, which was built as watch tower.Tomorrow, we will visit the fabulous Sainte Chapelle.

As usual, you can find some of these pictures on my photo blog.