Île de la Cité

Notre Dame de Paris on Île de la Cité from upstream (the east)

The Île de la Cité is one of two natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris (the other being Île Saint-Louis, the Île des Cygnes being artificial). It is the centre of Paris and the location where the medieval city was refounded. The western end has held a palace since Merovingian times, and its eastern end since the same period has been consecrated to religion, especially after the 10th century construction of a cathedral preceding today's Notre Dame. The land between the two was, until the 1850s, largely residential and commercial, but since has been filled by the city's Prefecture de Police, Palais de Justice, Hôtel-Dieu hospital and Tribunal de Commerce. Only the westernmost and northeastern extremities of the island remain residential today, and the latter preserves some vestiges of its 16th century canon`s houses.

Contents

History

Remains of a defensive Roman wall beneath the parvis facing Notre Dame de Paris.

Most scholars believe that in 52 BC, at the time of Vercingetorix's struggle with Julius Caesar, a small Gallic tribe, the Parisii, were living on the island. It has also been said that a Roman by the name of Lutece founded the Île de la Cité which started as a fortress. At that time, the island was a low-lying area subject to flooding that offered a convenient place to cross the Seine and was also a refuge in times of invasion. However, some modern historians believe the Parisii were based on another, now sunken island. After the conquest of the Celts, the Roman Labienus created a temporary camp on the island, but further Roman settlement developed in the healthier air on the slopes above the Left Bank, at the Roman Lutetia.

Later Romans under Saint Genevieve escaped to the island when their city was attacked by Huns. Clovis established a Merovingian palace on the island, which became the capital of Merovingian Neustria. The island remained an important military and political center throughout the Middle Ages. Eudes used the island as a defensive position to fend off Viking attacks in 885, and in the tenth century, a cathedral (the predecessor of Notre-Dame) was built on the island.

From early times wooden bridges linked the island to the riverbanks on either side, the Grand Pont (the Pont au Change) spanning the wider reach to the Right Bank, and the Petit Pont spanning the narrower crossing to the Left Bank. The first bridge rebuilt in stone (in 1378) was at the site of the present Pont Saint-Michel, but ice floes carried it away with the houses that had been built on it in 1408.[1] The Grand Pont or Pont Notre-Dame, also swept away at intervals by floodwaters, and the Petit Pont were rebuilt by Fra Giovanni Giocondo at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The six arches of the Pont Notre-Dame supported gabled houses, some of half-timbered construction, until all were demolished in 1786.[2]

The Île de la Cité remains the heart of Paris. All road distances in France are calculated from the "zero kilometer" point located in the Place du Parvis de Notre-Dame, the square facing Notre-Dame's west end-towers.

The Pont Neuf

Main article: Pont Neuf

The Pont Neuf, the "new bridge" that is now the oldest bridge in Paris, was completed by Henri IV, who inaugurated it in 1607. The bronze equestrian statue of Henri IV was commissioned from Giambologna under the orders of Marie de Medici, Henri’s widow and Regent of France, in 1614. After his death, Giambologna's assistant Pietro Tacca completed the statue, which was erected on its pedestal by Pietro Francavilla in 1618. It was destroyed in 1792 during the French Revolution, but was remade from surviving casts in 1818. The sculpture originally rose from the river on its own foundations, abutting the bridge; since then, the natural sandbar building of a mid-river island, aided by stone-faced embankments called quais, has extended the island, which is planted as the teardrop-shaped Parc Vert Galant in honour of Henri IV, the "Green Gallant" King.

The Place Dauphine

The Place Dauphine, laid out in 1609 while the Place des Vosges was still under construction and named for the Dauphin of France, the future Louis XIII,[3] was among the earliest city-planning projects of Henri IV. The space, a rectangle with two canted ends, was made over to Achille du Harlay to construct thirty-two houses of regular plan. It is approached through a kind of gateway centred on the "downstream" end, formed by paired pavilions facing the equestrian statue of Henri IV on the far side of the Pont Neuf. They are built of brick with limestone quoins supported on arcaded stone ground floors and capped by steep slate roofs with dormers, very like the contemporaneous facades of Place des Vosges. Few visitors penetrate Place Dauphine, which lies behind them, and where all the other buildings have been raised in height, given new facades, rebuilt, or replaced with a heightened pastiches of the originals. The former enclosing east side was swept away to open the view to the monumental white marble Second Empire Palais de Justice (built 1857-68), like a glazed colonnade[4] centered on the Place Dauphine, the remains of which now form a kind of forecourt to it.[5]

The Île de la Cité seen from the west, downstream

Sights

Three medieval buildings remain on the Île de la Cité (east to west):

Île de la Cité 1609

The oldest remaining residential quarter is the Ancien Cloître. Baron Haussmann demolished some of the network of narrow streets, but was dismissed in 1869 before the entire quarter was lost.

Old engraved maps of Paris show how, when the Pont Neuf was built, it grazed the downstream tip – the "stern" of the island-ship. Since then, the natural sandbar building of a mid-river island, aided by stone-faced embankments called quais, has extended the island, which is planted as the small Vert Galant park, named for Henri IV of France, the "Green Gallant" king. It retains the original low-lying riverside level of the island. Nearby, a discreet plaque (illustration below) commemorates the spot where Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burnt at the stake, 18 March 1314. The upstream tip of the island is home to the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, a memorial to the 200,000 French citizens who were deported to German labour camps during the Second World War.

Transportation

The Île de la Cité is connected to the rest of Paris by bridges to both banks of the river and to the Île Saint-Louis. The oldest surviving bridge is the Pont Neuf ('New Bridge'), which lies at the western end of the island.

Plaque commemorating the burning of Jacques de Molay

The island has one Paris Métro station, Cité; and the RER station Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame on the Left Bank has an exit in the square in front of the Cathedral.

Notes

  1. ↑ Floods destroyed the bridge at intervals, the last houses being removed in 1809, and the present bridge was constructed in 1857. (Photos et historique: Le pont Saint-Michel).
  2. ↑ The present bridge dates from 1853, with the central arches replaced by an iron span in 1919. (Photos et historique: Le pont Notre Dame).
  3. ↑ Place is feminine, not dauphin
  4. ↑ The architects were Joseph-Louis Duc and Honoré Daumet.Palais de Justice
  5. ↑ La Place Dauphine.

External links

References