Saint-Jacques Tower

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Saint-Jacques Tower

Saint-Jacques Tower is one of the monuments of Paris. It is located in the IVe arrondissement. This 52-m gothic tower is all that remains of the former church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie.

Boucherie is the French word for butchery. The rich decoration which can be glimpsed beneath the sheeting covering the tower reflects the wealth of its patrons, the wholesale butchers of the nearby Halles market. It was dedicated to Saint James the Great under François I's reign, and welcomed pilgrims of way of St James. A statue of the saint was installed on the top of the tower during the 19th century. The church, with the exception of the tower, was demolished in 1797.

The architect Ballu restored the tower in the 19th century and its current setting, in a small, beautifully-kept city park, dates from second-empire improvements coinciding with the construction of the eastern section of the rue de Rivoli to the north and avenue Victoria to the south.

The tower was placed on its pedestal at this time. Huge quantities of earth were moved from this area in order to ensure the rue de Rivoli a smooth orderly path through the ancient quarter and the pedestal allowed the tower to retain its original elevation. The change in ground level can be best appreciated in rue St-Bon, just to the north east of the tower, where a staircase leads up to the original street level in rue des Lombards.

A statue of Blaise Pascal is located at the base of the tower, commemorating the scientist's experiments on atmospheric pressure, performed here. Nowadays, a meteorological laboratory is also installed at the top of the tower.

The tower inspired Alexandre Dumas his play, La tour Saint-Jacques-la-boucherie, created in 1856.

As other donators of the church, Nicolas Flamel was buried under the church floor.

The tower has been surrounded by scaffolding and obscured by sheeting for some years as surveyors investigate the condition of the stone. Their recent findings show that happily the existing fabric is far more original than thought and that much ornamentation previously attributed to the imagination of the 19th century restorers is the genuine, late-medieval article. Unfortunately, the survey has also discovered serious cracking and no timetable has been given for an unveiling of the monument.