This point sits inside Place Dauphine, a triangular square near the western tip of the island at the heart of Paris.
Last reviewed 4 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 51 BC–1950
The short answer
Place Dauphine is a triangular square on the western tip of the Île de la Cité in Paris, built from 1607 on the orders of Henri IV and named for his infant son, the future Louis XIII. Local tradition places Jacques de Molay's 1314 burning at what is now number 26 of the square.
Place Dauphine, Paris. — 2006 · Alexandre Duret-Lutz from Paris, France · CC BY-SA 2.0
1607 to 1616
Henri IV orders a triangular square built on filled-in islets
Place Dauphine is a triangular square, now home to small restaurants, art galleries, and a quiet patch of gravel where people play pétanque. It sits where two muddy river islets once poked out of the Seine, scarcely more than mudbanks, next to the western garden wall of the old royal palace. King Henri IV wanted a second grand square for Paris, after his first one across the river. In 1607, he handed the cleared land to Achille de Harlay, the presiding judge of the Paris Parlement, and told him to build it. Harlay named the new square after the king's son, the infant Dauphin who would grow up to become Louis XIII of France. Builders raised 32 identical houses around the triangle, each with arcaded shops on the ground floor, brick and white stone walls, and steep slate roofs. The last house went up in 1616, closing the square for good. One entrance opened onto the Pont Neuf at the western tip. The other sat in the middle of the eastern side, facing the royal palace that would later become the Palais de Justice. Goldsmiths, engravers, and spectacle-makers set up shop under the arcades, drawn by the nearby Louvre. Local tradition holds that the exact spot of Jacques de Molay's execution, where the last Grand Master of the Templars was burned at the stake in 1314, lies at what is now number 26 of the square, nearly three centuries before Harlay's houses went up around it.
1792 to 1814
The Revolution strips the square of its royal name
The Revolution stripped the square of its royal name. For twenty-two years it was Place de Thionville, no longer honoring a king's infant son. When the monarchy returned in 1814, the name Place Dauphine came back with it, and has stayed ever since.
1854 to 1874
The eastern row falls to open a view of the Palais
The Palais de Justice rose at the eastern end of the island, and its builders wanted a grand view of the new facade. Between 1871 and 1874, under the direction of Viollet-le-Duc, workers tore down the entire eastern row of houses, the whole base of Harlay's triangle. After two hundred and sixty-seven years, the square stood open on one side for the first time. A small garden was laid out in 1884 where the houses had been, and trees were planted to mark where the lost row once stood.
1950 to now
Monument status locks in what survived two centuries of change
In 1950, the surviving facades and the ground of Place Dauphine were protected as a historic monument, locking in what was left after two centuries of rebuilding and one demolition. Only two pavilions, flanking the entrance to the Pont Neuf, still look as they did when Harlay's builders finished them. The south side of the square keeps most of its original houses; the north side is more patched together.
Poets gave the square a nickname that has stuck: le sexe de Paris, for the shape of its triangle and the two arms of the Seine curving around it like legs. Writers have kept coming back to it. André Breton wrote about the square in his novel Nadja, and the singer Jacques Dutronc put it into his 1968 song about Paris waking at five in the morning, rhyming himself as "le dauphin de la Place Dauphine." The actors Simone Signoret and Yves Montand lived at number 15.
Today the square holds small restaurants and art galleries behind the old arcades, and a gravel clearing at its center where people still play pétanque in the afternoons. The Pont Neuf carries foot traffic past its western point toward the statue of Henri IV, the king who ordered the square built, though the square's own layout is angled just enough that the statue cannot quite be seen from inside it.
Gravel, old facades, and a triangle of chestnut trees now fill the ground where Harlay's builders raised thirty-two matching houses more than four hundred years ago.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
A battle called the Battle of Lutetia was fought in 383 AD near this stretch of the Seine, when the settlement the Romans called Lutetia stood where Paris stands now.
Nineteenth-century excavation found a cemetery from the 5th century beneath Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois church nearby, part of an early Christian site tied to Saint Germanus.
In 1314, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned alive here on the order of King Philip the Fair, at what is now number 26 Place Dauphine.
In 1607 King Henri IV gave this land, built up from two muddy Seine islets, to Achille de Harlay to build a triangular square of thirty-two identical houses, naming it for his son the future Louis XIII.
In 1660 Louis XIV and his new queen Marie-Thérèse made their royal entry into Paris through the Place Dauphine, a ceremonial passage meant to signal peace.
From 1792 to 1814 the Place Dauphine was renamed Place de Thionville, its royal associations stripped away, before reverting to Place Dauphine at the Restoration.
From 1802 to 1874 a fountain topped with a statue of General Louis Desaix stood in the Place Dauphine, commissioned by Napoleon to honor his victory at Marengo, where Desaix had died.
Between 1871 and 1874 the entire eastern row of houses on the Place Dauphine, damaged in fighting during the Paris Commune, was demolished under Viollet-le-Duc's direction.
Local tradition holds that Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake there on the order of King Philip the Fair, at what is now number 26 of the square, nearly three centuries before the square itself was built.
What was here before Place Dauphine was built?
The ground was formed from two muddy, scarcely-there islets in the Seine, next to the western garden wall of the old royal palace, before Henri IV had them built up into a triangular square from 1607.
Who built Place Dauphine and why is it named that?
King Henri IV gave the land to Achille de Harlay, presiding judge of the Paris Parlement, in 1607 to build a second grand square for Paris; Harlay named it for the king's infant son, the Dauphin who became Louis XIII.
Why was the eastern side of the square demolished?
Between 1871 and 1874, under the direction of Viollet-le-Duc, the entire eastern row of houses was torn down so that the Palais de Justice would have a grand view of its facade, opening the triangle on that side for the first time in two hundred and sixty-seven years.
Is Place Dauphine a protected historic site?
Yes, in 1950 the surviving facades and the ground of Place Dauphine were protected as a historic monument.
Who are some famous residents or writers associated with Place Dauphine?
The actors Simone Signoret and Yves Montand lived at number 15; André Breton wrote about the square in his novel Nadja, and Jacques Dutronc referenced it in his 1968 song about Paris.
Where this came from
1
Paris Balade — Jacques de Molay burned at the stake on this triangle of ground
