L'Île aux Juifs, le bûcher de Jacques de Molay

Paris (1er arrondissement)

On 18 March 1314, on the forecourt of Notre-Dame, four dignitaries of the Temple heard their sentence: life imprisonment. Two of them, the master Jacques de Molay and the preceptor of Normandy Geoffroy de Charney, rose, withdrew their confessions and proclaimed that the order was innocent and holy. Philip the Fair, informed, did not wait for the Church: that same evening he had them taken to the Île aux Juifs, a tongue of sand and willows between the Cité and the left bank, opposite the gardens of his palace, and burned over a slow fire. The chroniclers show them asking to die with their faces turned towards Notre-Dame; it is in later authors that Molay summons the pope and the king before the tribunal of God — but Clement V died on 20 April and Philip the Fair on 29 November of the same year, and the legend had only to settle in. The islet has disappeared beneath the embankments that, at the end of the 16th century, welded it to the Cité to carry the Pont-Neuf; the square du Vert-Galant, planted in 1884 in its place, keeps the level of the Seine, the only spot in Paris where one sits on the water of 1314.

Wikipédia — Jacques de Molay ↗

Getting there : Stairs behind the equestrian statue of Henri IV, in the middle of the Pont-Neuf (métro Pont-Neuf or Cité). The square is open during the day, free of charge, closed when the river is in flood. A plaque at the foot of the stairs recalls the burning.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound