Île de la Cité

Think of the city as a map with three main zones, because that is literally how medieval Parisians thought of it.

In the middle, sitting in the river, was the Île de la Cité, the island.

This was the old core of Paris.

On one end stood Notre-Dame Cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of Paris.

1314, the last Grand Master.

In the same year, 1314, Paris witnessed another diamond-tier execution.

On the 18th of March, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned alive on a small island in the Seine called the Île aux Juifs, near the western tip of the Île de la Cité, close to where the Pont Neuf stands today.

The Templars had been one of the richest and most powerful organisations in Christendom, a military religious order that had fought in the Crusades and built up a vast network of properties and banking operations across Europe.

I memorized the verse in order that I might meditate upon it.

I began a search of Paris for the books Troward had recommended to me, and after two or three days' search we crossed the river Seine to the Ile de Cite to go into some of the old bookstores there.

They were out of print, and these were the best places to find them in.

Finally, we came upon a little shop that had the books there.

I memorized the verse in order that I might meditate upon it.

I began a search of Paris for the books Troward had recommended to me, and after two or three days' search, we crossed the river Seine to the Ile de Cite to go into some of the old bookstores there.

They were out of print, and these were the best places to find them in.

Finally, we came upon a little shop that had the books there.

They laid a trap.

They baited the wolves toward the L'Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of Seine, the oldest, oldest heart of Paris, and they drove the pack straight by street onto the island toward the great square in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Then they closed the ways out.

The square filled with hundreds of people, torchlight on the snow, the carved saints of the cathedral looking down from their stone shelves, and the two towers black against the sky, the color of iron.

The stone became the Louvre, originally a fortress built by Philip Augustus in the late twelfth century and expanded over the following centuries into the vast palace complex that would eventually become the world's most visited museum.

The stone became the Palais de Justice on the Île de la Cité, the seat of French legal authority for centuries.

It became churches and monasteries and townhouses and bridges and city walls.

It became, in the most literal sense possible, Paris itself.

Oliver Gee here with another episode of The Earful Tower, and we're going through the alphabet, as some of you surely remember.

Last week was I, Île de la Cité, with that amazing archaeological discovery.

That means this week is J, and I've always wanted to do an episode about Josephine Baker.

So in today's episode, you're gonna hear from Brian Scott Bagley, who's the founder of the Musée Josephine Baker.

but the Celts were ultimately outmaneuvered and defeated in the brutal Battle of Lutetia in 52 BC.

The city was eventually rebuilt from scratch by the Romans, who moved to higher ground, largely leaving the low-lying Île de la Cité, where the Notre Dame Cathedral now stands.

Over the centuries, as the Roman Empire's power fractured, the Gauls began to revive their native regional identities.

Letitia came to be known as Paris in honor of its ancient settlers.

Anyway, I, I, I don't wanna get too, too into this, into the weeds, but they go to Notre Dame, and there's, there's all the references to the, the, all the...

It's just so intricate to all those, the spiritual sites, the, um, the, the, um, they have dinner on the Île de la Cité, which is where, um, King Louis brought, um, that's where the N- Notre Dame...

Uh, no, Île de la Cité is named, um, the Île de la Cité in Saint Louis, excuse me, named after King Louis the, the IX who brought relics of Christ's crown of thorns and the True Cross from the Holy Land, placing them in the ball under the cross atop Notre Dame.

After dinner, they walk around the island.

There's Notre Dame, and then they, all the, the streets, I mean, it's just all spiritual.

We've been told not to accept him." And at this point, the carriage is surrounded by policemen who are loyal to the Commune, and they say, "We're heading back.

We're, we're taking him off." And they take Robespierre in his carriage off back to the center of town to the police headquarters, which is in the Mairie on the Île de la Cité in the s- very center of Paris.

The sun has just set.

It's eight o'clock, and the carriage rattles into the courtyard of the Mairie, the police headquarters, and Robespierre, who is now exhausted and pale and bewildered, is helped out of the carriage by police agents who are wearing tricolor sashes, and he's escorted into the building of police HQ.