In the 11th century the king of France ruled from Paris, and his most powerful vassal was William, Duke of Normandy, the man who later took England. The two fell out: in 1054 two royal armies marched into Normandy and one was surprised at Mortemer, and in 1057 another was stopped at the ford of Varaville, near Caen, and the king had to turn back. The Mondes normands history site (caen.fr) tells the full story.
We are a Paris page, so we follow that long rivalry between the kings in Paris and their neighbours down the Seine to three places in Paris where you can still stand in front of it.
The royal palace on the Île de la Cité
The kings of that time, the Capetians, lived on the Île de la Cité. The Conciergerie tells us the old fortress there became a palace when the Capetians came to the throne at the end of the 10th century. It was at its largest in the 13th and 14th centuries and stopped being a royal home in the 14th century, while the Parliament and the royal offices stayed. The first room we head for is the Gothic Salle des Gens d’Armes, its vault keystones 8.5 metres above the floor. Plan a visit: paris-conciergerie.fr.
The Paris most visitors miss
Our free 8-page PDF guide: 25 places, from Galerie Vivienne's 1880 mosaic floor to Canal Saint-Martin's locks, each linked to its official site.
The medieval Louvre, under the museum
In 1190, as he left on crusade and feared English invasions, King Philippe Auguste had a castle built on the west side of Paris: the first Louvre. The museum describes it as a four-sided fortress ringed by moats, with ten towers and the “Grosse Tour”, a keep 15 metres across that held the royal treasury and archives. The City of Paris adds why it stood in the west: invaders came up the Seine from that side, so the king closed off both the city and the river.
In 1528 King François I had the keep pulled down, yet its base survives below ground. On the lower floor of the Pavillon de l’Horloge, in the Sully wing, we walk along the medieval moat beside the old walls. More from the museum: louvre.fr.
Philippe Auguste’s wall in the Marais
Between 1190 and 1210 the same king had a wall built right around Paris. The longest stretch still standing, about 80 metres, runs beside the Collège Charlemagne on rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul, next to a sports ground. Smaller pieces turn up in courtyards and basements across the Right Bank, and the City of Paris has a walking trail that finds them, from rue du Louvre to quai des Célestins: paris.fr.
Updated October 2026: rewritten to focus on Paris; facts checked against louvre.fr, presse.louvre.fr, paris.fr, paris-conciergerie.fr and the Mondes normands site (mondes-normands.caen.fr).
Tours & experiences in Paris
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