The Palais de Justice and the Sainte Chapelle

By Grant Allen


[Footnote: From "Paris."]



Go along the Rue de Rivoli as far as the Square of the Tour St. Jacques.
If driving, alight here. Turn down the Place du Chatelet to your right. In
front is the pretty modern fountain of the Chatelet; right, the Theatre du
Chatelet; left, the Opera Comique. The bridge which faces you is the Pont-
au-Change, so-called from the money-changers' and jewelers' booths which
once flanked its wooden predecessor (the oldest in Paris), as they still
do the Rialto at Venice, and the Ponte Vecchio at Florence.

Stand by the right-hand corner of the bridge before crossing it. In front
is the Ile de la Cite. The square, dome-crowned building opposite you to
the left is the modern Tribunal de Commerce; beyond it leftward lie the
Marche-aux-Fleurs and the long line of the Hotel-Dieu, above which rise
the towers and spire of Notre Dame. In front, to the right, the vast block
of buildings broken by towers forms part of the Palais de Justice, the
ancient Palace of the French kings, begun by Hugh Capet. The square tower
to the left in this block is the Tour de l'Horloge. Next, to the right,
come the two round towers of the Conciergerie, known respectively as the
Tour de Cesar and the Tour de Montgomery. The one beyond them, with