Palais de la Cité
The Palais de la Cité on the Île de la Cité in Paris was the residence of the French kings from the 10th to the 14th centuries . Today the building complex is less known as a whole, but rather because of its essential parts,
- the Sainte-Chapelle ;
- the conciergerie and
- of the Palais de Justice (especially in its modern construction)
history
The ensemble of buildings is located on the spot where the royal mint was built under the rule of King Dagobert I in the 7th century . At the beginning of the 11th century, King Robert the Pious († 1031) had a palace built here, which was to become the center of power in France for the next four centuries.
Between 1244 and 1248, at the request of Louis IX. of the saint, presumably by Pierre de Montreuil, the palace around a chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle , to accommodate the precious Passion relics ("Christ's crown of thorns " and parts of the " True Cross ") and the tip of a lance that belonged to the Roman centurion Longinus and which the king bought from the Latin emperor Baldwin II in 1237 . On April 26, 1248 the chapel was consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In the years 1302 to 1313, King Philip the Fair had the palace rebuilt after he discovered that the Louvre , as Philip Augustus had it built, was no longer sufficient for receptions for the growing court, but also for foreign guests, which he inaugurated at Pentecost 1313 with a festival at which the English King Edward II , his son-in-law, was present and three sons of Philip were knighted. During these renovations, the Tour d'Argent and the Tour de César and a new three-sided external staircase in the east were added to the Tour Saint-Louis , but above all the famous Great Hall (Grande salle) on the upper floor with its two ships (now destroyed) and the Chambre de parlement as an annex at its northwest end. Within the Grande Salle, the west end was considered the place of the royal table at festivities and one could then retreat to the Chambre de Parlement with selected personalities. Further to the west were the living quarters of the king and queen, connected by galleries. The so-called Gothic Salle des Gens d'Armes (Knight's Hall) was located on the ground floor below the Great Hall . This hall still shows the size of this part of the building with a length of 64 m, a width of 27.5 m and here a height of 8.5 m. The lower hall served as a dining room for the approximately 2000 employees of the palace, but was later also used as a theater hall.
In 1358 it came under the uprising Jacquerie to raid Etienne Marcel and his followers to the palace in which two marshals of the king were killed. As a consequence of this attack and the apparently not guaranteed security, the royal family moved, first to the Hôtel Saint-Paul near the Bastille , which was just being built, and later to the enlarged Louvre. King Charles V left the Palais de la Cité partially to the Parliament , which housed its judiciary here - and which still works in the (newer) Palais de Justice within the complex today. The three towers mentioned were then popularly named Tour Civile (for the Tour d'Argent), Tour Criminelle (for the Tour de César) and Tour des Réformateurs or Tour Bonbec , because the tongues were cut out here under torture - a bon bec , big beak , was made - and the cries of the tortured could supposedly still be heard on the Rive Droite .
Other parts of the former palace building became the seat of the royal administrator, a concierge , from which the current name of part of the building complex is derived. In 1370 the first publicly visible mechanical clock in the city was installed on the corner tower of the palace, from which the current name Tour d'Horloge (clock tower) derives.
To the west of the palace, with a view from the Logis royal , which was centrally located in the west facade of the palace, i.e. facing away from the houses on the Cité and the noise and stench of the city, the royal gardens extended to the tip of the island (which at that time was still this side of the later Pont Neuf lay). These gardens had become useless with the king's departure and were sold and opened for building in the 16th century: Place Dauphine was built here from 1580 to 1611.
Palais de la Cité around 1400 as a reconstruction after Viollet-le-Duc
La Cité entre le Pont Notre-Dame et le Pont au Change 1754–1835
Plan of the Palais de la Cité according to Viollet-le-Duc
Reconstructed floor plan of the grande salle, built under Philip the Fair between 1302 and 1313
Reconstructed elevation of the grande salle, built under Philip the Fair between 1302 and 1313
The Great Hall, built from 1302 to 1313 by Philip the Handsome, later destroyed, here after a reconstruction from 1855
Salle des Gens d'Armes on the ground floor, built under Philip the Fair between 1302 and 1313
The north facade of the Palais de la Cité by the Pont au Change seen from
Model of the Île de la Cité at the time of the construction of the Pont Neuf (in the foreground), behind the bridge the garden view of the Palais de la Cité
Palais de justice de Paris and the Sainte Chapelle
View of the courtyard south of the Sainte Chapelle in a painting by Pierre-Denis Martin
The Great Staircase on the east side, built under Philip the Fair around 1313
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Buildings
In his Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVe siècle , the architect and art historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc gave a description of the Palais de la Cité including a plan (ground floor in the 16th century) and a view under the heading Palais .
In it he writes that although remains from the Gallo-Roman period were found during excavations, the oldest parts of the palace itself date from the time of Louis the Saint, namely:
- The Sainte-Chapelle (A - the letters refer to the plan),
- The parts of the building on the Quai de l'Horloge including the two towers (B) and the Tour carrée du coin (C, today Tour de l'Horloge), some of which seem to be a bit older. The square building next to the tour carrée, the kitchen, is a little younger.
- The walls (E and E ') and the gates to the south and east, which were preceded by a moat in the 14th century; the last remnants of walls E 'in the 19th century for the construction of the police building at the Quai des Orfèvres demolished
- The donjon (G), which still stood in the middle of the 18th century and at the end was named Tour de Montgomery, because Gabriel de Lorges , Count of Montgomery, was imprisoned here after he killed King Henry II at a tournament in 1559 injured so badly that he died a few days later
On Philip the Fair (and his Minister Enguerrand de Marigny ) go back:
- The Salle des gens d'armes (I) on the ground floor and the (destroyed) two-aisled Great Hall (Grande salle) on the upper floor
- The Logis royal (L), as well
- The gallery (H) between Sainte-Chapelle and the Grand'salle and
- The pillared halls (K) that connected the individual structures with one another
The Chambre des comptes (Court of Auditors) was located in building M south of the actual palace, which was built under Louis XI. started and under Louis XII. has been completed. Behind the audit office was a sideline gate (N) from the 14th century, remains of which were still visible at the time of Viollet-le-Duc.
Other components of the palace were: the Saint-Michel chapel (P) next to the southern of the two gates and the garden (T).
Today from the palace still exist:
- The Sainte-Chapelle without its three-storey annex (V), which served as a sacristy and as a repository for the royal documents
- The ground floor of the Grand'salle, the great upper hall, has been destroyed
- A considerable part of the portico (K)
- The four towers on the Quai de l'Horloge (B, C)
- The rear part of the kitchen building (D) and the hall behind the twin towers (B)
- The Logis royal in all its height
Individual evidence
- ↑ Whiteley 1994, p. 49.
literature
- Monique Delon: La Conciergerie - Palais de la Cité (Itineraires du patrimoine). ISBN 9782858222988
- Mary Whiteley: Royal and Ducal Palaces in France in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century. Interior, ceremony and function . In: Architecture et vie sociale. L'organization intérieure des grandes demeures à la fin du Moyen Age et à la Renaissance, ed. by Jean Guillaume. Paris, 1994, pp. 47-63, especially pp. 47-49.
- Jean Guerout: Le Palais de la Cité, des origines à 1417. Essai topographique et archéologique , In: Mémoires de la Fédération des sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France 1949, vol. 1, p. 57 -212, 1950, Vol. 2, pp. 21-204, 1951, Vol. 3, pp. 7-101.
- Herveline Delhumeau: Le palais de la Cité. Du Palais des rois de France au Palais de Justice . 2011.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 51 '23 " N , 2 ° 20' 44" E