This point sits inside the Palais de Justice, Paris, on the Île de la Cité, where French kings once ruled.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 2843 BC–2018
The short answer
The Palais de Justice on the Quai de l'Horloge in Paris stands on the site of the old Palais de la Cité, the royal palace from which French kings ruled before Charles V abandoned it after a 1358 uprising. The law courts remained, and the building has served as France's seat of justice ever since.
A former royal palace and prison in Paris. Cropped version. These days it is part of the large Palais de Justice. During the French Revolution it was used as a prison for the victims of the guillotine, during the Reign of Terror. The Paris — 2009 · Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom · CC
10th century to 1358
Kings ruled this island until a mob stormed the palace
The Palais de Justice, Paris is a working courthouse on the Île de la Cité. It still holds the Court of Appeal of Paris and France's highest court, the Court of Cassation (France). The building sits on the site of the old Palais de la Cité, the royal palace of the kings of France.
Under Robert II of France, this island fortress became home to a royal council. His successors expanded it. Philip IV of France built the Grand Chamber in the late 1200s, a vast hall used for royal theater and for meetings of the Parlement of Paris, the body of high nobles who judged disputes and approved royal laws.
In 1358, Paris erupted. The merchant Étienne Marcel led an uprising, and his men broke into the palace and murdered the Dauphin's ministers in front of him. The future king, Charles V, fled across the river for safer ground. He never lived in the palace again. But the judges stayed, and the Parlement of Paris kept meeting in the Grand Chamber for four more centuries.
1793 to 1795
The Grand Chamber sent thousands to the guillotine
When the French Revolution swept away the monarchy, the Grand Chamber became the courtroom of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Judges here condemned prisoners by the cartload. In 718, days, the Tribunal sent 2,780 people to the guillotine, including Marie Antoinette and, eventually, its own chief prosecutor, Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville.
Prisoners were held in the Conciergerie below, then marched up through the Cour de Mai courtyard and past the clock tower on their way to the scaffold at Place de la Concorde.
1840 to 1871
Communards burned decades of rebuilding in one night
By the 1800s, the courts had outgrown the old palace. Architect Jean-Nicolas Huyot drew up plans for a grand expansion. He died in 1840, two weeks after approval came through. Joseph-Louis Duc and Étienne-Théodore Dommey took over the project instead. Construction dragged on for decades, through the fall of one king and the rise of an emperor.
In 1839, during an uprising against King Louis-Philippe, the revolutionary Barbès led 600 armed men straight at the Palais. They urged the guards to join them, then stormed the building and took it by force.
The long rebuilding was almost finished in 1871 when the Paris Commune seized the city. As French troops fought their way back in during the Bloody Week, retreating Communards set fires inside the nearly completed Palais. The flames gutted nearly twenty-five years of work in a matter of days.
1868 to 1914
An award-winning extension rose, burned, and rose again
Even before the fire, part of the new Palais had opened. Duc and Honoré Daumet finished a major extension in 1868, and the building won the Grand Prix de l'Empereur as the best artwork made in France that decade. Sculptor Jean-Marie Bonnassieux carved figures for its exterior.
After the 1871, fire, Daumet took charge of the rebuilding once Duc died in 1879. Work resumed in 1883 and continued for decades. Architect Albert Tournaire finished the final piece, new correctional courts on the Quai des Orfèvres, in 1914. That same year, the Conciergerie prison beneath the Palais opened to the public as its last inmates were moved out.
1945
Vichy's leaders were tried and sentenced to death here
After the Second World War, the Palais tried the men who had run Vichy France under Nazi occupation. Former prime minister Pierre Laval and Marshal Philippe Pétain both stood trial here in 1945. Judges found both men guilty and sentenced them to death. Laval was executed by firing squad that October. Pétain's sentence was commuted because of his age, and he died in 1951 under guarded confinement.
2018 to now
A clock tower bell once signalled a massacre
The Palais de Justice still functions as a working courthouse. In 2018, the lower Tribunal de Grande Instance moved out to a new tower in the Batignolles district, easing some of the crowding in these old halls.
Centuries earlier, long before any of this building stood, the same tower above the Conciergerie rang a different kind of warning. On the night of August 23, 1572, its bell signaled the start of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Mobs killed an estimated 3,000 Protestants in Paris over the following days, and tens of thousands more across France.
The clock tower that once signaled a massacre and watched prisoners pass to the guillotine still keeps time over the Seine.
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Prehistoric
Île de la Cité area
Radiocarbon samples taken within 400 meters of here date to between 2843 and 2470 BC, among the oldest traces of human activity recorded on this stretch of the Seine.
The Battle of Lutetia was fought around 51 BC as Roman forces under Julius Caesar's campaign subdued the Gallic Parisii, whose settlement stood on this island.
From the reign of Robert II onward, the Palais de la Cité served as the residence and seat of royal power, housing the King's council and later the Parlement of Paris until Charles V moved out in the 14th century.
In 1358 the merchant Étienne Marcel led Parisians into the palace and killed two of the Dauphin's ministers, which pushed the future Charles V to abandon the Cité as his residence, though the law courts stayed behind.
During the Hundred Years' War, in 1371, Paris got its first public clock at the corner tower on what is now the Boulevard du Palais, carrying the alarm bell of the royal palace.
Quai de l'Horloge, at the Tour de l'Horloge tower of the Conciergerie
On the night of August 23-24, 1572, the bell of the Tour de l'Horloge, right beside you, rang out to start the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which thousands of Protestants were killed across Paris.
A 1776 fire consumed the section of the palace between the Conciergerie and Sainte-Chapelle, and that same year master locksmith Bigonnet forged the ornate gilded iron gate that still opens onto the Cour du Mai.
The silver bell of the Tour de l'Horloge had rung for centuries to announce royal births and deaths, but it was silenced in 1789 and melted down during the Reign of Terror.
Between 1793 and 1794, prisoners including Marie Antoinette, Robespierre and Danton were marched from the Conciergerie's cells through the Cour de Mai and past the clock tower here before being carted off for execution.
During the French Revolution the Grand Chamber, once the seat of the Parlement of Paris, turned into the Revolutionary Tribunal's courtroom, sending 2,780 people to the guillotine in 718 days before the Terror ended in 1795.
As French troops retook Paris in May 1871, Communards set fires throughout the nearly finished Palais de Justice, destroying almost a quarter-century of construction work in a single night.
In 1918, long-range German Grosse Bertha guns shelled Paris, with one shell striking near the Pont d'Arcole on March 30 and another at no. 35 on the quay on April 15.
In October 1945 the courtrooms of the Palais de Justice, which you are standing inside, tried France's wartime leaders for collaborating with the Nazi occupation; Pierre Laval was convicted and executed by firing squad weeks later.
Quai de l'Horloge, below the Tour de l'Horloge clock
During the May 1968 uprising, student protesters and police clashed violently right below the Tour de l'Horloge clock, leaving around 400 people injured.
After nearly a thousand years as the seat of Paris justice, the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris relocated in 2018 to a new high-rise building designed by Renzo Piano in the Batignolles district.
The Palais de Justice has served as the seat of French royal power and later as a courthouse for centuries. It housed the Parlement of Paris, became the Revolutionary Tribunal's courtroom in the 1790s, suffered a devastating fire set by Communards in 1871, and tried Vichy leaders Pierre Laval and Philippe Pétain in 1945.
What was here before the Palais de Justice?
The site held the Palais de la Cité, the royal palace from which French kings ruled from the reign of Robert II onward. Charles V abandoned it as a residence after an uprising in 1358, though the law courts remained.
Why did the Tour de l'Horloge clock tower ring on 23 August 1572?
Its bell rang that night to signal the start of the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which an estimated 3,000 Protestants were killed in Paris over the following days, and tens of thousands more across France.
Who was tried at the Palais de Justice in 1945?
Former prime minister Pierre Laval and Marshal Philippe Pétain both stood trial here for collaborating with the Nazi occupation of France. Both were sentenced to death; Laval was executed by firing squad in October 1945, while Pétain's sentence was commuted and he died in 1951 under guarded confinement.
What happened to the Palais de Justice during the Paris Commune?
In May 1871, as French troops retook Paris during the Bloody Week, retreating Communards set fires inside the nearly completed Palais de Justice, destroying almost twenty-five years of rebuilding work in a matter of days.
Is the Palais de Justice still used as a courthouse?
It still functions as a working courthouse, holding the Court of Appeal of Paris and the Court of Cassation. In 2018 the lower Tribunal de Grande Instance moved out to a new tower in the Batignolles district.
