The Dark History of Medieval Paris: Five Places Where It Happened

Paris is good at hiding its past behind its beauty. The square in front of the Hôtel de Ville, one of the busiest public spaces in the city, was for more than five centuries its place of execution. A short walk away, on the hill of the Latin Quarter, is the tomb of the city's patron saint, whose remains were burned on that same square during the Revolution.

With Halloween coming, here are five places where the darker history of medieval Paris actually happened, in the order you can walk them, from the Right Bank across the Île de la Cité to the Left Bank.

For more than five hundred years it was the main place of public execution in Paris, from the first recorded burnings in 1310 until executions moved elsewhere in 1832. In 1310 the mystic Marguerite Porete was burned there for heresy. In 1610 François Ravaillac, who had stabbed King Henri IV, was tortured and torn apart by four horses in front of a vast crowd. In 1680 Catherine Deshayes, known as La Voisin, was burned alive at the height of the Affair of the Poisons. And in 1792 the square saw the first execution by guillotine, which, the story goes, disappointed the crowd by being so quick.

The name comes from the sandy riverbank, the grève, where boats unloaded along the Seine. Men looking for a day's work used to wait on the square, which is why « faire grève » later came to mean going on strike. Since 1803 it has been called the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville.

Because the Roman town of Lutetia grew up on and around this island in the Seine, and for most of the Middle Ages it was the centre of royal and religious power, with the king's palace at one end and Notre-Dame at the other. Work on Notre-Dame began in 1163. Its most famous creatures, the chimeras looking down over the city from the gallery, are younger than most visitors assume: they were added by the architect Viollet-le-Duc during his restoration in the nineteenth century. The cathedral reopened in December 2024, five years after the fire of April 2019.

It's one of the oldest. The church you see today was begun around 1165 to 1170, at the same time as Notre-Dame across the river, on a site where there had been a church since the sixth century. Since 1889 it has belonged to the Melkite Greek Catholic community, which explains the wooden iconostasis inside, unusual in a Paris church.

In the little garden next door, the Square René-Viviani, grows a black locust planted in 1601 by the botanist Jean Robin, who brought the species to France. It is usually called the oldest tree in Paris, and from the same garden you get one of the best views of Notre-Dame.

A late fifteenth-century mansion built for the abbots of Cluny right beside the ruins of Roman baths, and since 1843 the national museum of the Middle Ages. The abbey bought the site, Roman baths included, in 1340, and the house you see was rebuilt under Jacques d'Amboise, abbot from 1485 to 1510. Inside hang the six tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn, and the museum reopened in May 2022 after a long renovation. The walls of the Roman baths still stand on the corner of Boulevard Saint-Michel, so you can see two thousand years of the city in one glance.

In 1793, during the Revolution, her remains were burned and her reliquary melted down on the Place de Grève, the same square where this walk begins. Geneviève is the patron saint of Paris. According to tradition, in 451 she persuaded Parisians not to flee as Attila's army approached, and the Huns turned away from the city.

Her tomb survived, and it's in Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, on the hill that bears her name, beside the Panthéon. The church took from 1492 to 1626 to build, keeps the only Renaissance choir screen left in Paris, and is where Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine are buried.

Yes. Our medieval Paris walking tour follows this route in two hours, from the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville to Place Sainte-Geneviève, with a guide who tells the stories behind each stop. Walks leave at 10:00, 14:00 and 18:00 and are guided in English. From late October, when the clocks go back, the 6pm walk ends after dark, which suits the subject.