CONCIERGERIE

Description

Essentials about the Conciergerie in brief

The Conciergerie is located in the western part of the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris. It is part of the building complex of the Palais de la Cité, which was the residence of the French kings from the 10th to the 14th century. Today you can visit the former dungeon of the Conciergerie, where thousands of people were awaiting execution at the time of the French Revolution.

The history of the Conciergerie

After a peasant uprising including a raid on the Palais de la Cité, the royal family left the palace in the middle of medieval Paris. The Conciergerie became the seat of the royal steward, from whose designation “concierge” the name of the building is derived. Even before, but especially during the French Revolution, the Conciergerie served as a prison and housed up to 1,200 prisoners.

From 1793 to 1795, the sessions of the Revolutionary Tribunal were held here, during which nearly 2,800 people were sentenced to death, including Marie Antoinette, Georges Danton and Maximilien de Robespierre. In one room of the Conciergerie, a plaque commemorates all the Revolution’s deaths by name. The former dungeons of the Conciergerie can be visited today.