MORE PARIS

My poor older travelling companion has injured her foot. I don't think our 4 hour walking tour did it any good so we are going to lay low for the next few days.  We're going to make use of our metro cards or stay close to home.  When home, Sharon is going to ice her foot and hopefully before too long she will be fully recovered.  That's our plan!

So today, we decided to stay close to home.  Out the door and up the steet we bought our tickets for the Conciergerie and the Sainte-Chapelle.  

For centuries the Palais de la Cite was the residence of the French Monarchary.  At the end of the 4th century Charles V left the royal residence on the Ile de la Cite for the hotel Saint-Pol.  He appointed a steward or "concierge" endowed with legal powers, to run the Palace and prision.  The Conciergerie was listed as a historical monument in 1914.  The palace itself has disaappeared leaving the Sainte-Chapelle all but surrounded by the Palais of Justice. 

The Hall of Men-at-Arms, was built from 1302n onwards under Philippe le Bel and is considered one fof the finest examples of Gothic secular architure.

After a fire in 1776, Louis XVI modernized the Conciergerie prison, which was later put to very good use during the French Revolution.The prisoners gallery was the prison's main thoroughfare, where prisoners could wander freely.  Reconstructions can be seen in the building, of the Clerk's Office, the room where prisoner's names were registered; the concierge's office, who under the Revolutiion was put in charge of the prisoners; and the grooming room where prisoners were stripped of their personal belongings before being executed.  In an upper level room is a list of prisoners held in the Conciergerie during the Reign of Terror.  The list of names spans three walls.  Very moving.

Among those prisoners held here was Marie-Antoinette and Robespierre.  In 1793 and 1794, over 2700 people appeared bfore the tribunal's public prosecutor.  In 1794, witnesses and defenders were eliminated and ten of people were guillotined each day. In 1795, after the fall of Robespierre, the tribunal was dissolved.

In 1815 Marie-Antoinettes Chapel was built on the exact spot where her prison cell stood.

Her cell was reconstructed on part of the actual site of her dungeon.  She had made a failed attempt to escape and thus she was moved to this cell and was permanently guarded by two gendarmes.

Sharon and I both enjoyd the Women's Coutyard.  Condemned Prisoners washed their clothes and ate in this area.  It is also where the condemned prisoners waited in groups of 12 for the cart that would carry them off to the scaffold.

Here you can also see the fountain where they washed their clothes.  That's Sharon sitting on it.  We have a wash machine back at the flat so no doing laundry in the fountain for us.

I'm just waiting for the cart to carry me home.

Interestingly enough this courtyard extended all the way to the street where we are residing.  

We left the Conciergerie and walked next door to the Sainte-Chapelle ( The Holy Chapel).  The chapel was built by Louis IX for use as the royal chapel and to house his precious relics - the crown of thorns which  he purchased from the impoverished Latin emperor, Baldwin II for 135,000 livres.  ( The chapell cost 40,000 livres to build).  A piece of the true cross was added along with other relics, making Sainte-Chapelle a valuable reliquary.  Most of Louis' precious relics were lost or destroyed in the French Revolution; the few that remain are in the treasury of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Sainte-Chapelle was planned in 1241, started in 1246 and quickly completed.  It was consecrated on April 26, 1248.  During the French Revolution the chapel was converted to an administrative office and the windows were obscured by enormous filing cabinets.  Their all but forgotten beauty was thereby inadvertently protected from the vandalism in which the choir stalls and the rood screen were destroyed.  

"The interior gives a strong sense of fragile beauty created by reducing the structural supports to a bare minimum to make way for huge expanses of exquisite strained glass.  The result is a feelin of being envelope in light and color. " The windows are in blue and reds and illustrate 1.130 figures from the Bible. There are 6,458 square feet of stained glass windows .  The windows are in the process of being restored and releaded, etc.  A project which if I recall has been going on for 5 years and is due to be completed this year.  Despite the construction you can still see many of the windows and get a sense of the beauty of the Chapel.  Pictures do not do it justice,

Downstairs from the chapel is this small chapel area where this statue of the ultra-devout King Louis IX is displayed.  

It was a perfect outing so we went home, Sharon iced her foot and I continued to read a book, Freedom, for the second time.  Too long since I read it.  I've signed up for a book club with Inter-Nations and have to have the book read by the 1st.  

We recovered in time to go out to dinner at a little Mexican Restaurant not too far from the house and had a very nice meal!

Our plans for tomorrow ,if Sharon is able, is to go to the Musee Rodin.

Au revoir pour present

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