Courthouse

We’ve reached the lovely Verdun square. We’re now entering a new part of town, even older than the Mazarin district! It all started way back in 1583; you see, the city had grown considerably in the preceding centuries and it needed to be expanded. Architect Jean de Paris got the job and this is how the square came to be. It’s actually the biggest one in the city. Fast forward to 1787, and they started building a courthouse on the site of the former Count’s palace. To do this, they had to demolish over 200 houses! The works began, but then the French Revolution hit, putting the project on hold until 1822. Construction was led by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, and then Michel Penchaud after the Revolution. It was completed in 1831 and the Court moved in the following year. In 1842, they added two statues on either side of the stairs leading up to the entrance; one depicts Joseph Jérôme Siméon, and the other Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis. These two statesmen were lawyers by profession and key figures in the French Revolution. They even had a hand in writing the French Civil Code of 1804. The two marble statues were made by Ramus, a famous 19th-century sculptor from Aix-en-Provence. The recently-renovated Courthouse building is now listed as a historical monument, and it’s used today for civil and commercial cases, as well as for Assize Court trials.