Tour Saint Jacques

Where place du Châtelet meets the boulevard de Sebastopol and rue de Rivoli one of the ancient monuments that escaped demolition during Baron Haussmann’s ruthless gutting of the city can still be seen. The Tour Saint Jacques, built in the flamboyant Gothic style, is the remains of a 16th century church, the somewhat sweetly named church of St Jacques de la Boucherie (Saint James of the butchery). It is so-called after its patrons, the wholesale butchers at the nearby covered market of Les Halles. The church itself was destroyed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The tower was rebuilt and the small park constructed at the same time as rue de Rivoli was being built and it was declared to a Historic Monument in 1862. This landmark tower is to this day a starting point for pilgrims walking the roads of The Way of Saint James, the roads that lead to the pilgrimage site of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Photo credit: Par besopha (Flickr: La Tour Saint Jacques) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (creativecommons.org)], via Wikimedia Commons