It was Etienne Marcel, Mayor of Paris, who first established the municipal council at the Place de Grève, at that time the only large square in Paris. In July, 1357, he purchased as a Hostel de Ville the Maison aux Piliers, which had been inhabited by Clémence d'Hongrie, widow of Louis le Hutin, and which afterward took the name of Maison du Dauphin from her nephew and heir, Guy, Dauphin de Viennois.
In 1532 a new Hôtel de Ville was begun and finished by the architect Marin de la Vallée in the reign of Henri IV. This was so much altered by successive restorations and revolutions that only a staircase, two monumental chimney-pieces in the Salle du Trône, and some sculptured doorways and other details remained from the interior decorations in the old building at the time of its destruction.
Till the time of Louis XVI. the history of the Hôtel de Ville was entirely local; after that it became the history of France. It was there that Louis XVI. received the tri-colored cockade from Bailly, Mayor of Paris, July 17, 1789; and there, in the chamber called, from its hangings, Le Cabinet Vert, that Robespierre was arrested, in the name of the Convention, during one of the meetings of the Commune, July 27, 1794. After the fall of Robespierre it was seriously proposed to pull down the Hôtel de Ville, because it had been his last asylum--"Le Louvre de Robespierre." It was only saved by the common-sense of Leonard Bourdon.
But most of all, in the popular recollection, is the Hôtel de Ville connected with public fêtes--with those on the second marriage of Napoleon I. (1810), on the entry of Louis XVIII. (1814), on the coronation of Charles X. (1825), on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans (1837), on the visits of different foreign potentates to Napoleon III. Here also was the Republic proclaimed, September 4, 1870.
It was in one of the windows of the Hôtel de Ville that Louis Philippe embraced Lafayette (August, 1830) in sight of the people, to evince the union of the July monarchy with the bourgeoisie. On the steps of the building Louis Blanc proclaimed the Republic, February 24,1848. From September 4, 1870, to February 28, 1871, the hôtel was the seat of the "government of the national defense," and from March 19 to May 22, 1871, that of the pretended "Committee of public safety" of the Communists. On May 24 it was burned by its savage defenders, many of whom happily perished in the flames.
The Place de l'Hôtel de Ville is so modernized that it retains nothing of the Place de Grève but its terrible historic associations. Among the many fearful executions here, it is only necessary to recall that of Jean Hardi, torn to pieces by four horses (March 30, 1473) on an accusation of trying to poison Louis XI.; that of the Comte de St. Pol (December 19, 1475), long commemorated by a pillar; those of a long list of Protestants, opened by the auto-de-fé of Jacques de Povanes, student of the University, in 1525; that of Nicholas de Salcède, Sieur d'Auvillers, torn to pieces by four horses in the presence of the king and queens, for conspiracy to murder the Duc d'Anjou, youngest son of Catherine de Medici. More terrible still was the execution of Ravaillac (May 27, 1610) murderer of Henri IV.
"The executioner cut off his hand with an ax, and threw it and the murderous knife into the fire. His breasts, his arms and his legs were torn with pincers, and boiling oil and melted lead poured into the open wounds. He was then dismembered by four strong horses, which pulled for no less than an entire hour. They dismembered only a corpse. He expired," says L'Estoile, "at the second or third pull." When the executioner had to throw the limbs into the fire that the ashes, according to the sentence, might be flung to the winds, the whole crowd rushed on to claim them. "But," adds the same chronicler, "the people rushed on so impetuously that every mother's son had a piece, even the children, who made fires of them at the corners of the streets."
After the capture of the Bastille its brave governor, M. de Launay, was beheaded on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, and his major, M. de Losme- Salbray, was massacred under the Arcade St. Jean. These were the first victims of the Revolution. Foulon, Intendant du Commerce, suffered here soon afterward, hung from the cords by which a lamp was suspended, whence the expression, which soon resounded in many a popular refrain, of "put the aristocrats to the lantern."
Two parasite buildings, the Conciergerie, and the Prefecture of Police, are now annexed to the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie takes its name from the house of the concierge in the time of the royal residence here, who had a right to two chickens a day and to the cinders and ashes of the king's chimney.