Description
The Conciergerie is a medieval royal palace on the Île de la Cité that became the prison of Paris during the Revolution. Its huge Gothic halls and a few preserved rooms tell how a king's home turned into the antechamber of the guillotine.
The best-known room is the Hall of the Men-at-Arms, built by Philip IV in the early 14th century. It is about 60 meters long, the largest non-religious Gothic hall in Europe, where up to two thousand guards and servants once gathered to eat.
Another room is the Hall of Names, its walls covered with the names of the more than four thousand people sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. And the memorial chapel stands on the site of the cell of Marie Antoinette, who spent her last weeks here, watched day and night by two gendarmes.
On the outside, four medieval towers rise along the Seine, among them the clock tower on the corner, with the first public clock in Paris. The palace is at the core of the island, beside the Sainte-Chapelle and the law courts.
The jailers called the Conciergerie "the most lucrative furnished lodgings in Paris." A wealthy prisoner could pay for a bed, go to the guillotine a few days later and leave it free for the next paying guest. The poor slept on straw.
The building had been made for kings. On the island, where a Roman governor once had his fortress, the Capetians built the Palais de la Cité, and around 1300 Philip IV gave it its great halls. In the 1360s Charles V moved out, and the palace began to fill up with cells.
In 1793 the Revolutionary Tribunal moved in upstairs: in 780 days it sent 2,780 people to their death. Robespierre was later locked in the same cell as Marie Antoinette. The prison closed only in 1934.
The best-known room is the Hall of the Men-at-Arms, built by Philip IV in the early 14th century. It is about 60 meters long, the largest non-religious Gothic hall in Europe, where up to two thousand guards and servants once gathered to eat.
Another room is the Hall of Names, its walls covered with the names of the more than four thousand people sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. And the memorial chapel stands on the site of the cell of Marie Antoinette, who spent her last weeks here, watched day and night by two gendarmes.
On the outside, four medieval towers rise along the Seine, among them the clock tower on the corner, with the first public clock in Paris. The palace is at the core of the island, beside the Sainte-Chapelle and the law courts.
The jailers called the Conciergerie "the most lucrative furnished lodgings in Paris." A wealthy prisoner could pay for a bed, go to the guillotine a few days later and leave it free for the next paying guest. The poor slept on straw.
The building had been made for kings. On the island, where a Roman governor once had his fortress, the Capetians built the Palais de la Cité, and around 1300 Philip IV gave it its great halls. In the 1360s Charles V moved out, and the palace began to fill up with cells.
In 1793 the Revolutionary Tribunal moved in upstairs: in 780 days it sent 2,780 people to their death. Robespierre was later locked in the same cell as Marie Antoinette. The prison closed only in 1934.