Description of the attraction
Not far from the Cité is the famous Saint-Jacques tower - it is perfectly visible from the bridge on the Ile de Cité or from the rue Saint-Jacques. Built in a fiery Gothic style, this tower is a true embodiment of the controversial history of Paris.
Now the tower stands alone in the middle of the city, which looks a little strange. However, at one time it was the bell tower of the Parisian Church of Saint-Jacques de la Bouchery (Church of St. James), built at the beginning of the 16th century under King Francis I. It was erected in the settlement of butchers, who generously donated for construction. That is why the name contained the word "busheri" (French boucherie - meat trade, butcher's shop).
It was here that the main road to the south passed through Paris, leading to the famous shrine in Spain - Santiago de Compostela (in French - Saint-Jacques de Compostela). This circumstance will play a role in the fate of the tower three and a half centuries later.
The bell tower is 52 meters high. Blaise Pascal in 1648 chose her to carry out experiments on measuring atmospheric pressure. In 1793, during the Great French Revolution, the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Bouchery was destroyed, but the bell tower, as a sign of respect for the great physicist, was left untouched.
The new revolutionary authorities in France curiously disposed of the fate of the tower - they sold the hunting shot to the manufacturer. The shot production technology looked like this: molten lead poured in a thin stream from a 50-meter height. In flight, the trickle disintegrated into balls, which finally cooled down in a barrel of water.
In 1836, the city of Paris bought the tower back. In the middle of the 19th century, the tower was restored: in fact, it was rebuilt. Paul Chenillon made for her a new statue of St. James to replace the one destroyed during the revolution. In 1856, the first square in Paris was laid out at the foot of Saint-Jacques. In 1891, a small meteorological station appeared on the tower.
In 1998, the Saint-Jacques Tower was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site among seventy other pilgrimage sites in France on the way to Santiago de Compostela.
The tower was last restored in 2008. Today it is open to tourists.
