Du Palais au palais de justice : visiter l’enclos judiciaire de Paris aux xviie et xviiie siècles

Focusing on the visitors' perception and their experience, this article studies the pre-patrimonial elaboration of the Palais de Paris during the 17th and 18th centuries. This approach gives an insight into the way tourists gaze at the Palais and an opportunity to study the Palace's practical and symbolic integration in the city. The sources of the bailliage du Palais (the Palace’s bailiwick) and the reading of the printed guidebooks and memorialists' theses allow one to comprehend the precocious touristic structure of a hybrid place. Not only was the royal heritage at the heart of the speech on tribunals but also at the heart of the practice of its users. Architecture, as well as furnishings, gave material to think about the great age of those places, which provided them with a source of legitimacy. The visits of the Palace were an essential and almost obligatory experience for the visitors, which they often recounted. These visits were part of the logic behind the discovery of Parisian monuments. They also had to do with commercial meandering in a place where shopping was developing. Either way, what was at stake here was how to make the strolled place one's own. The Palais was visited by ordinary observers who came to attend the judiciary and ceremonial performances. As for some renowned foreign visitors, they were welcomed with respect. The experiences became singular in a very composite place, of which they promoted the recognition of its monument status. The Palace of Justice was tending to assert itself as such through the tourist gaze and the writing of guidebooks.