another stroll...

we meant to go to the cluny museum, but on the way we passed the conciergerie, and i remembered that we missed this on our honeymoon. so we decided not to miss it this time. on the way, we saw some art:

i'm not sure a huge watering can is actually art, but it's actually cool, so there. 

parisians LOVE to be outside. love it. they are all eating lunch here. 

this is a photo shoot. 

yeah, we saw a french model, no big deal.

okay. so the conciergerie is the oldest part of the palais de cite, the first palace used by french royalty in paris. then it was a notorious prison during the french revolution. 

here i am! (ps, it's been about 65-66 degrees everyday here. hence, no socks.)

this is the preparation room, where prisoners were sent before going to guillotine. they handed over whatever possessions they had left, changed into simple white gowns, and had their hair sheared to the nape of their necks. that's a basket of hair right there. 

the rooms for noble prisoners. the poor people had to sleep all in a heap on the bottom floor. this was one of those prisons where you could pay for your privileges. or, if you couldn't, you didn't have any. 

old locks and keys for the prison. 

do you know about charlotte corday? she's the one who assassinated jean-paul marat in his bathtub. marat was one of the leaders of the terror, and charlotte blamed him for the  september massacres and believed that his actions were leading to civil war. so she got admittance to his house by claiming that she needed to report some disloyal citizens. marat had a skin condition that required him to soak in the tub a lot. he invited her in, and she gave him a list of citizens. while he was distractedly reading, she stabbed him in the chest. 

4 days after his death, she was executed. during the second empire, she became a hero, called the "angel of assassination", as marat was seen as a revolutionary monster. thus spins history...

ah yes, maximilien robespierre, leader of the terror... incidentally, did you know that early in robespeirre's career, he resigned rather than sentence a criminal to death? oh, how times change.... by the time he himself lost his head (literally), robespierre would be a key element in sending somewhere between 16,000-40,000 people to their deaths. 

and here's the ladder he used to climb into his apartment. 

memorial to madame elizabeth, sister to the king. elizabeth was one of the most conservative members of the royal family, and a devout catholic. she refused to marry, as she would have had to leave france to do so, and was loyal to her brother the king. when the revolution began, she looked at it as the ultimate evil, and would not abandon the royal family. 

blurry memorial for marie antoinette. sorry. 

marie antoinette's last communion. 

memorial for louis XVI. i have to say... the more you read about king louis XVI, the more you think, "you know... if you'd gotten your head out of your ass a little sooner-- or at all-- none of this would have happened...." 

the courtyard where prisoners who could pay for it occasionally took the air. 

marie antoinette. her hair turned while when the head of her dear friend, princesse de lamballe, was waved on a spike outside her window. well, wouldn't yours?? this was during the sepetmber massacres, for which charlotte corday would later kill marat. 

and that's ol' marie. her cell was very private, see?

yup, there's a screen that the guards can look right over. we went to versailles on our honeymoon, and i swear the first thing i thought of when i saw all that opulence was, "well, now i understand why the french revolted!" and you know, i'm an american, so as much as i admire and cherish the monarchs of other countries, my heart is with the people who want democracy. 

still. it's a sad, sad story.