A tower without its church
Flamboyant Gothic, sole survivor of a church the Revolution sold.
Mbzt — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · DiscoA340 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · DiscoA340 — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Revolution nationalised France's churches and sold many as stone quarries — the butchers' church among them. The tower survived by a clause in the sale, then served as an observation post and a shot-making factory before the city bought and restored it. Paris is full of such half-survivors for those who read her.
For those who catch and book the summer tours: 300 steps to a rare central view including an unusually close Notre-Dame. But it is a prize of luck and planning — build no day upon it.
You do not — it fits itself: it sits on the natural line between Louvre/Rivoli and Notre-Dame/Marais. When you pass, give ten minutes for a circuit and a zoom at its upper carvings.
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In a small garden between Châtelet and the Hôtel de Ville stands a flamboyant Gothic tower alone without its church: the Tour Saint-Jacques, all that remains of the great church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, built by the rich butchers of the neighbouring meat market in the sixteenth century and sold for its stones by the Revolution — the buyer being required to keep the tower. It was the Paris starting point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela — hence its name. Beneath it stands a statue of Pascal, who repeated his atmospheric pressure experiments here; on its 54-metre summit Saint James stands among the Evangelists' symbols. A beautiful passing station, not a destination: you will see it anyway between the Louvre and the Marais or Notre-Dame; it earns a circuit and its story — and the garden beneath is a rare shaded rest in Paris's heart.
Flamboyant Gothic, sole survivor of a church the Revolution sold.
Paris pilgrims' starting point towards Spain since the Middle Ages.
Here Pascal repeated his mercury experiments — science beneath a pilgrim tower.
Square de la Tour Saint-Jacques, 75004 Paris