Let's go on more briskly with our stroll, out of the church (north side), onto the rue de l'Abbaye and then to 27, rue Mazarine. There is a parking now, but go down the ramp and, in the first and second underground levels meet a goody length and an impressive "TOWER BASE OF THE 13th CENTURY TOWER WALL".
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Tower
of defensive wall |
Yes, sir, it was built under King Philip Augustus. That's at least what Arthur Gillette found out after long researches.
Notice this: ---the amount of debris over your head. The street level of Paris has risen by several meters in the eight centuries since the wall you are looking at was built, and imagine that on the lower parking level, you stand in its moat!---the quite uniform shape of the wall's stone blocks. Philip Augustus had so much buildings going on that he had stones squared into a standardized size at the quarries, making it possible to use them in any of his building plans.
Let's resurface and go at 15, rue de l'Ecole de Médecine. What remains of this once splendid establishment (corde means cord with which Franciscan monks belted their habits), to the "CORDELIER'S CONVENT") is its refectory, which you see to the left of the main gate and is now an exhibition hall, started in the 14th , its construction took about 150 years! The refectory's façade offers nice late gothic motifs and tote right a spiral staircase. The whole is supported by wooden pillars and notice the "reader's pulpit" (seen, on entering, to the left and at the back of the wall). During the French Revolution, an insurgent's club met here. It was the first call to the s-destitution of Louis XVI, which ended with its decapitation.
Now up the rue de l'Ecole de Medecine and on to the HOTEL DE CLUNY, 24 rue du Sommerard. , of course not a hotel in the common sense, but to receive important visitors. Foliage and grape brunches sculpted around the main door evoke the agricultural abundance of that region and the abbey's great wealth. It's now the MUSEUM OF TH MIDDLE AGES of which I made already a review on /Paris/ParisHtml/Paris_Visit_5tharr_Huchette-Severin_LePauvre_Cluny.htm
Note the scallop shells and walkers staffs that decorate the Hotel's courtyard façade. Emblems of the medieval pilgrims headed -south for Santiago de Compostela along nearby rue St. Jacques.
To end this article here an anecdote, found in some historical book by Arthur:
"Widowed at age 16 in 1515 after only three months of marriage, to the much older king, Queen Mary (sister of the rambunctious English king Henry VIII) posed a potential thread to the succession of the French throne hoped for the pretender Francis. Should she give birth in the next six months, her child and not Francis would be crowned!! What a disaster! So François locked her up in the hotel de Cluny. But that was without knowing the burning libido of the queen. Even the crenellated wall did not prevent her for being discovered in the gallant arms of the duke of Suffolk!
François, who was not a fool, had them married immediately in the hotel's beautiful little first story-chapel, sent them packing to England two weeks later and he became king---later renowned François 1er!
Bibliography
A Medieval Sampler, stroll no.2 by Arthur Gillette (ed.Media-Cartes)
Sources of culture, volume 1 abbaye of Saint-Germain(.M.Biggs TH.Dill, E.Schermacj-Histoire de François 1er, dit le grand roi-Henry VIII Henry VIII and His Many Wives!by Elizabeth Batt-The House of Tudor, by Alison Plowden
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