On 23 October 1295, at Paris, King Philip IV of France sealed a treaty of alliance with John Balliol, King of Scots. It is the treaty the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland is dated from. We wanted to know what that Paris looked like, and the good news is that we can still walk into three buildings that were already standing when the seals went on.
The Sainte-Chapelle: The Royal Chapel on the Île de la Cité
The Sainte-Chapelle was the chapel of the Capetian kings’ palace on the Île de la Cité. Louis IX built it in the middle of the 13th century, in less than seven years, to house the Crown of Thorns, which he acquired in 1239. Two years after the treaty, in 1297, Louis IX was canonised and became Saint Louis.
About two-thirds of the stained glass in the upper chapel is original 13th-century glass, so much of what we see there is what the court saw in 1295. The spire is a 19th-century rebuilding, the fifth on the chapel. Tickets and opening times are on the official Sainte-Chapelle website.
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.
Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois: The Parish Church Facing the Louvre
Across the river, opposite the Louvre, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois is known as the parish of the kings of France. The Diocese of Paris counts five centuries of building in one church: a Romanesque bell tower and east end, a choir and doorway in the Rayonnant Gothic style, a Flamboyant Gothic nave and porch, and Renaissance stained glass.
The Romanesque tower was already old in 1295, while the porch we walk through today came later. Inside, we look for the churchwarden’s pew that Charles Le Brun designed for Louis XIV. Guided visits are listed on the Diocese of Paris page for the church.
Saint-Pierre de Montmartre: A Church Consecrated in 1147
At the top of the Butte Montmartre, King Louis VI founded an abbey of Benedictine nuns on the site of an oratory dedicated to Saint Denis. Its church, Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, was consecrated in 1147 by Pope Eugene III, with Saint Bernard and Peter the Venerable. By 1295 it had stood for almost 150 years.
Old and new sit side by side here: bronze doors by Tomaso Gismondi from 1980 and stained glass by Max Ingrand from 1954. Opening times are on the parish website.
Getting Around the Paris of 1295
The first two churches are a short walk apart: from the Sainte-Chapelle, cross the Seine to Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois (metro Louvre-Rivoli or Pont-Neuf). Then take the metro north to Abbesses, Anvers or Lamarck and climb to Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. In one day we cross the Paris that Philip IV knew.
Updated October 2026: rewritten to focus on Paris. Checked October 2026 against People of Medieval Scotland (the treaty “at Paris, 23 October 1295”, from the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland; Wayback copy https://web.archive.org/web/20250326221342/https://poms.ac.uk/record/factoid/72129/), sainte-chapelle.fr (Saint Louis and History of the Sainte-Chapelle pages) and the Diocese of Paris pages for Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois and Saint-Pierre de Montmartre.
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