Palace of Justice

The Palais de Justice de Paris on the Ile de la Cite is a vast judicial complex covering nearly a fifth of the island. Power has stood on this site since Roman times: the Lutetian praetorium, then the Merovingian and Capetian royal palace, the high-Gothic Sainte-Chapelle of Louis IX from 1248, and the Conciergerie where Marie-Antoinette spent her last weeks before the guillotine. The present western wing, in Second Empire neoclassical style, was completed in 1868 to plans by Louis Duc. Until 2018 it housed the Paris tribunal de grande instance; today the complex holds the Cour d'appel and Cour de cassation, plus the visitor-accessible Sainte-Chapelle and Conciergerie.