Cité: station history
Served by: metro line 4.
Did you know?
A line 4 station in the 4th arrondissement, under the Île de la Cité, between Saint-Michel and Châtelet. It is the only Paris metro station built under an island. It bears the name of the Île de la Cité, the historic cradle of Paris. About 25 metres deep, it has 118-metre platforms. Its vault keystone at 12.5 metres, the highest on the network.
Anecdote
To cross the Seine under the riverbed, the station was built with three steel caissons 16.5 metres long, as at Saint-Michel. It was equipped with lifts as early as 1911, with Saint-Michel. Its entrance, on place Louis-Lépine, is decorated with a Guimard edicule, on the site of part of the flower market, partly dismantled in 1905. The platform screen doors were installed in October and November 2020. For the 60th anniversary of Asterix, the station became « Lutèce ». The Sainte-Chapelle is covered in the audio guide.
Audio guide
La Sainte-Chapelle, a setting of light
Saint Louis built it between 1243 and 1248 to house the Crown of Thorns, bought for a price of gold from the Emperor of Constantinople, much more expensive than the chapel itself. For such a treasure, the architecture fades away: the walls become glass. 🙏
Upstairs, 15 glass roofs over 15 meters high unfold 1,113 scenes, from Genesis to the Passion, until the arrival of the relics in Paris. A huge medieval comic, where red and blue dominate and the sun does the rest. 💙❤️
The contrast is intentional. Below, the lower chapel, dark and vaulted, for the palace staff. Above, the upper chapel, reserved for the king and his inner circle, bathed in color. One moves from shadow to light, like a foretaste of paradise.
Nearly 800 years later, about two-thirds of the glass is original, despite the Revolution and the centuries. The only notable exception is the great rose, added in the 15th century and dedicated to the Apocalypse. 🌹 An extensive restoration campaign, from 2008 to 2015, restored the glass roofs to their former glory.
Classified as a historical monument in 1862, the Sainte-Chapelle is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
A tip: visit in good weather, when the light passes through the stained glass windows and colors the entire nave. ☀️
Around Cité
- Conciergerie, 160 m away — Former palace of the Capetians on the Île de la Cité, named after the concierge, the palace's keeper. It preserves the Salle des Gens d'armes, described as the largest secular Gothic hall in Europe, and the Clock Tower, home of Paris's first public clock.
- Cathédrale Notre-Dame, 350 m away — A masterpiece of Gothic art begun in 1163, recently restored after the 2019 fire, the spiritual and historic heart of Paris.
- Sainte-Chapelle, 150 m away — A 13th-century royal chapel famous for its immense stained-glass windows, a jewel of Rayonnant Gothic built for Saint Louis.
- Fontaine de la Vierge, 450 m away — About 10 m high, it was created in 1845 by Alphonse Vigoureux for the Archbishopric square, now square Jean-XXIII, behind the apse of Notre-Dame. The Virgin and Child is by Louis-Parfait Merlieux.
- Marché aux Fleurs, 30 m away — A flower and bird market, one of the last of its kind in Paris, on Île de la Cité since the 19th century.
- Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, 550 m away — An underground memorial at the tip of Île de la Cité, dedicated to the 200,000 deportees who died in Nazi camps.