La Conciergerie de Paris

Across the place du Louvre from the grand colonnade of the Louvre itself stand the église Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the mairie du 1er arrondissment. The tower in the second photo below is the belfry of the mairie. The chuch you see today was built in the 1400s, replacing two earlier churches on the site. One was destroyed by the invading Norsemen in the 800s. The mairie, to the left of the belfry, was built to mimic the look of the medieval church.

Continuing upriver along the right bank, in the photo below you can see the place Dauphine in between two buildings, one which is on the place while the other is part of the Palais de Justice complex. It's the Cour de Cassation, France's supreme court of appeals.There's only one Cour de Cassation for all of France.

Then there are three old towers — one in which prisoners were tortured in medieval times and another where the crown jewels were once stored. These are photos I took on December 14, 2002, very late in the afternoon. I've "enhanced" them in Photoshop to make them — I hope — less hard on the eyes.

The square tower below, the 14th-century Tour de l'Horloge, is where in 1370 the first public clock in Paris was installed. It's still displaying the time on the Île de la Cité after 650 years, according to what I read in the Michelin green guide. However, the big silver bell that used to ring out from the tower was melted down by revolutionaries in 1793 because it was a symbol of the monarchy.

This is the Conciergerie, which has been called the "antechamber" (waiting room) for people headed for the guillotine (to be beheaded) during the Revolution — the most famous was queen Marie-Antoinette. Thousands were executed after spending time there. The building with the dome on the other side of the boulevard du Palais is the Tribunal de Commerce, where disputes between merchants, disputes over commercial acts, controversies involving commercial corporations, and bankruptcy proceedings have been adjudicated since medieval times.