the Tower of the Temple and its enclosure are an old fortress Paris ienne located in the III {{E}} and IV {{E}} current districts, which was destroyed in 1808. Built by the Templiers as from 1240, during the reign of holy Louis, it became a prison thereafter. It owes its celebrity with the fact that it was used as jail with the royal family in 1792 and 1793.

History

It is built at the same time as the imposing intramural fortress of the Templiers, with the Moyen-âge.

The Enclosure of the Temple

The Enclosure of the Temple was the house chevetaine of the Ordre of the Temple in France and the seat of the bank of the order in this country. High crenelated walls girdled it, reinforced with distance in distance by turrets. This defensive system was supplemented by a square tower, said tower of César, and by a fort Donjon called Grande Tower (the Tower of the Temple), which had been built at the 13th century. The unit included/understood like all the commanderies templières a church, buildings conventual to place the monk-soldiers, vast stables and appendices. Templiers had the whole streets and the totality of the district surrounding the enclosure.

It should be noted that the French Royal Treasury was preserved since 1146 at the Tower of the Temple, and thus kept by the templiers. Philippe Auguste builds a countable and tax system, ancestor of the Room of the Accounts, where the royal agents came three times the year to deposit the incomes of the Couronne. This practice took probably fine at the time of the reign of Philippe IV Beautiful the. After the death of the Jacques de Molay the March 18th 1314, the order of Templiers was dissolved and its goods passed to the hands Hospitaliers. Its buildings underwent many modifications.

In 1667, the walls which draw the Enclosure in the Parisian territory are cut down with the profit of private mansions and primarily occupied rental houses by craftsmen. Mansart builds a palate for the large prior. The old rampart had been replaced by an elegant surmounted wall of a gallery decorated with columns.

The Palate of the large prior

The Palate of the large prior was rather modest dimensions, it was preceded by a court bordered of columns and communicated with the street of the Temple by a vast gate.

Most famous of those which followed one another the function of large prior was Louis-François de Bourbon, prince de Conti (1717-1776) which made of its palate a high place of the cultural life, attended by the international intellectual world which one also crossed in the best living rooms of the time. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave to it a concert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau came as a neighbor and the Abbé Prévost, the author of Manon Lescaut was large chaplain there, him which never celebrated the mass.

At the time of the Revolution, the load had fallen to Louis Antoine d' Artois, duke of Angouleme, wire of the count d' Artois (future Charles X) who will marry the girl of Louis XVI, Marie Therese de France (Mrs Royale) which will know the imprisonment in the Tower of the Temple.

Under the Revolution

Above the palate of the large prior, one saw the powerful keep of the templiers and, on the left, the tower of César and the bell-tower of collegial built on the model of the church of the the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The Tower of the Temple

The Large Tower

This one was drawn up with the one of the ends of the old enclosure (with the height of the current town hall). The tower was a robust feudal masonry, of some 50 meters height, the thickness of the walls was on average of 4 meters, it included/understood four stages, whose ribbed vaults fell down on a central pillar. It was flanked of four strong turrets, of which one locked up a spiral staircase. The Large Tower was unutilised since centuries when the contractor Pierre-François Palloy was in charge of his refitting. It had divided each stage into several parts with partitions and false ceilings dissimulating the very high vault. These partitions were covered with wallpapers. On the frontage of the Large Tower one had joined, at a later date, the Small Tower.

The Small Tower

Joined with the frontage of the Large Tower, the Small Tower whose narrow construction was flanked of two turrets did not communicate with the Large Tower: this detail has its importance. It comprised a ground floor and four stages. It is in this small tower that was imprisoned the royal family of the August 13rd 1792, until the September 26th 1792 for Louis XVI, and until the October 26th 1792 for its family. It was advisable to make the Large Tower livable for the royal family.

Attributions of the stages of the Small Tower

August 13rd, 1792, the stages of the Small Tower were allotted as follows:

• the first stage was allotted to the three chambermaids: Mrs. Bazire, Navarre, Thibaud.

• the second stage was allotted to the queen and her daughter Marie-Therese de France. They slept in the old room of Barthelemy (archivist about Malta) who had been expelled of his residence by the agents of the Commune. On the same floor the princess of Lamballe slept in the anteroom on a bed of strap, Louise-Elisabeth de Croÿ de Tourzel and the dolphin divided the same room. There were toilets and a wardrobe.
• the third stage was allotted to the king. The king only slept in a bed with baldachin. Mrs Elisabeth divided her room with the young person Pauline de Croy d' Havré, girl of the duchess of Tourzel. The François servants Hoots and Chamilly slept in a rather narrow cabinet, opening on the anteroom. This stage was also equipped with toilets and a wardrobe. Moreover, the king had a reading room arranged in one of the turrets.

Attribution of the stages of the Large Tower

The Commune of Paris makes of it the prison of the royal family of which it had secured the guard, after the insurrectionary day of the August 10th 1792.

September 26th, 1792, Louis XVI is transferred in the Large Tower from the Temple, follow-up on October 26th of the same year by Marie-Antoinette of Austria and his children. the ground floor had not been transformed. The board of trustees of the Temple settled on December 8th, 1792 there. This vast part of approximately 60 meters was furnished with four beds intended for the police chiefs, an office, a desk intended for Jean-Baptiste Cléry, cupboards, of which one contained the registers. It is in this room that the municipal ones took their meals in company of the officers of the National guard in service with the Temple.

First stage

It sheltered the body of guard, that is to say forty men who slept on campbeds. Like the ground floor, this room had remained in the state. Bells connected the body of guards to the room of the council and the apartments of the royal family. The same spiral staircase served all the stages.

Second stage

It was affected to the king. A bent corridor, barred of two doors, one out of iron, the second in oak, gave access to the staircase. It included/understood four parts. Each one was lit by a window latticed and partly blocked by a lamp-shade in the shape of hood. In the anteroom one had posted the framed Déclaration of the human rights the tricolor one. This part is out of stone of sizes and was furnished with four chairs, a table to be written and a table with Trictrac. A glazed partition separated it from the dining room. The room of the king was papered of sharp yellow and communicated with the anteroom with a double door with casements. It was left open all the day to facilitate the monitoring. This part was equipped with a chimney which faced the door, surmounted of an ice. The bed of the king was placed against the partition. In prolongation of the royal bed, bed of strap intended for the dolphin (future Louis XVII). The pieces of furniture of the stage of the king came from the Palate of the large prior of Malta. The turret was used as oratory. Near the room of the king the room of Jean-Baptiste Cléry was. The other turret was used as wardrobe, the third turret to rough-hew.

Third stage

This stage was reserved for the queen, her daughter and Mrs Elisabeth. The apartment had the same surface as that of the king. It was not the exact counterpart. The identical anteroom preceded the room by the queen, located above that of the king. She was papered of paper-painted with flower of green color on blue bottom, she also had a double door. She was furnished with a table, a bed of rest and chairs. The room of the queen had a door with two casements and had a chimney. One had placed the bed of Marie-Therese de France in a corner; it was only one berth. There were also a settee, convenient, a folding screen and two night tables. A turret was used as cabinet. The obscure room Mrs Elisabeth was located under the room of Cléry, it was equipped with a chimney, of an iron bed, convenient, a table, two armchairs and two chairs. On this same floor the Firebrand slept above the dining room of the king.

Fourth stage

It was unoccupied, it was used as attic. Between the crenels and the sides of the high slate roof a gallery or rather a covered way ran. At the beginning of her imprisonment, the royal family could walk there; for that, the council of the Temple made furnish spaces between the crenels by boards which prevented the walkers from being seen. These precise details result from the inventories which were drawn up on October 25th, 1792 and on January 19th, 1793.

The police chiefs, appointed each evening by the Town hall, laid out of a room each one and a meeting room.

In the building where the large door of the enclosure opened and which bordered the street of the Temple, were the cabins of the caretakers, the stewardship and the kitchens. The troop had established its districts in the palate of the large prior. She included/understood a general commander, a chief of legion, a general under-adjudant, an executive officer, a carry-flag, twenty artillerists serving two guns, that is to say 287 men, by counting the subalterns, the warrant officers and the privates. This guard was indicated in turn by 8 divisions composing the National guard of Paris.

Description of the Tower of the Temple seen of outside

It was necessary to pass by the palate of the large prior to arrive at the enclosing wall of the Tower of the Temple. This wall was bored of a door charretière, reinforced iron bars, provided with large bolts and kept by two counter clerks and with a door pedestrian. These two doors were supervised by the counter clerks Pierre Louis Manuel and Richard. One penetrated then in the garden. Then, between high foliations, the high one appeared and sinks mass of the Tower of the Temple, flanked its four turrets with the pointed roofs, bored loopholes and narrow windows. The hoods blocked the openings on two stages. The pipes of stove ran on the wall, increasing its unpleasing aspect. Wind vanes surmounted the ridge of the Tower of the Temple and the four turrets.

Departure of the family members royal of the Tower of the Temple

The January 21st 1793, Louis XVI leaves the Tower of the Temple for the scaffold installed place of the Revolution.

The 1793, Marie-Antoinette is transferred to the Conciergerie

The May 10th 1794, after 21 month of stay to the Tower of the Temple, Mrs Elisabeth goes up in her turn to the scaffold.

The June 8th 1795, small the Louis XVII dies in the Tower of the Temple.

The December 17th 1795, Marie-Therese de France (after three years and four months of stay to the Tower of the Temple) was exchanged against four police chiefs delivered to the enemy by Charles François Dumouriez.

Destruction of the Tower of the Temple

The Temple incarnated with the eyes of the monarchists the place of the torment of monarchy, and had become a goal of pilgrimage. It is to slow down rise of it that Napoleon Bonaparte decided to deliver the Tower of the Temple to the demolition contracters in 1808. The demolition lasted two years. The northern angle of the town hall of the 3rd district and the grid of the Square of the Temple were high on the site of the Tower. There remains about it the current market of the Carreau of the Temple (which existed even with the Middle Ages). In the place of the palate of the large prior was planted the public garden of the Temple in 1853. There remain nothing of this high place of revolutionary mythology but one considerable production of images which maintain the tragic character the place.