Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing known as Giscard or VGE, is a French elder statesman who served as President of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981. As Minister of Finance under Prime Ministers Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Pierre Messmer, he won the presidential election of 1974 with 50.8% of the vote against François Mitterrand of the Socialist Party. His tenure was marked by a more liberal attitude on social issues—such as divorce and abortion—and attempts to modernise the country and the office of the presidency, notably launching such far-reaching infrastructure projects as the TGV and the turn towards reliance on nuclear power as France's main energy source. However, his popularity suffered from the economic downturn that followed the 1973 energy crisis, marking the end of the "thirty glorious years" after World War II. Giscard d'Estaing faced political opposition from both sides of the spectrum: from the newly unified left of François Mitterrand and a rising Jacques Chirac, who resurrected Gaullism on a right-wing opposition line.
In 1981, despite a high approval rating, he missed out on reelection in a runoff against Mitterrand, with 48.2% of the vote. As a former President of France, he is a member of the Constitutional Council, he served as President of the Regional Council of Auvergne from 1986 to 2004. Involved with the European Union, he notably presided over the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the ill-fated Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. In 2003, he was elected to the Académie française, taking the seat that his friend and former President of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor had held. At age 93, Giscard is the longest-lived French President in history. Valéry Marie René Giscard d'Estaing was born on 2 February 1926 in Koblenz, during the French occupation of the Rhineland, he is the elder son of Jean Edmond Lucien Giscard d'Estaing, a high-ranking civil servant, his wife, Marthe Clémence Jacqueline Marie Bardoux. His mother was a daughter of senator and academic Achille Octave Marie Jacques Bardoux, making her a great-granddaughter of minister of state education Agénor Bardoux.
She was through her own mother, a granddaughter of historian Georges Picot, a niece of diplomat François Georges-Picot, a great-great-great-granddaughter of King Louis XV of France by one of his mistresses, Catherine Eléonore Bernard, through her great-grandfather Marthe Camille Bachasson, Count of Montalivet, by whom Giscard d'Estaing was a multiple descendant of Charlemagne. Giscard had Sylvie, he has Olivier, as well as two younger sisters: Isabelle and Marie-Laure. Despite the addition of "d'Estaing" to the family name by his grandfather, Giscard is not descended from the extinct noble family of Vice-Admiral d'Estaing, that name being adopted by his grandfather in 1922 by reason of a distant connection to another branch of that family, from which they were descended with two breaks in the male line from an illegitimate line of the Viscounts d'Estaing, he participated in the Liberation of Paris. He joined the French First Army and served until the end of the war, he was awarded the Croix de guerre for his military service.
In 1948, he spent a year in Montreal, where he worked as a teacher at Collège Stanislas. He studied at Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, École Gerson and Lycées Janson-de-Sailly and Louis-le-Grand in Paris, he graduated from the École Polytechnique and the École nationale d'administration and chose to enter the prestigious Inspection des finances. He acceded to the Tax and Revenue Service joined the staff of Prime Minister Edgar Faure, he is fluent in German. In 1956, he was elected to Parliament as a deputy for the Puy-de-Dôme département, in the domain of his maternal family, he joined the National Centre of a conservative grouping. After the proclamation of the Fifth Republic, the CNIP leader Antoine Pinay became Minister of Economy and Finance and chose him as Secretary of State for Finances from 1959 to 1962. In 1962, while Giscard had been nominated Minister of Economy and Finance, his party broke with the Gaullists and left the majority coalition; the CNIP reproached President Charles de Gaulle for his euro-scepticism.
But Giscard refused to resign and founded the Independent Republicans, which became the junior partner of the Gaullists in the "presidential majority". However, in 1966, he was dismissed from the cabinet, he transformed the RI into a political party, the National Federation of the Independent Republicans, founded the Perspectives and Realities Clubs. He became more critical. In this, he criticised the "solitary practice of the power" and summarised his position towards De Gaulle's policy by a "yes, but...". As chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Finances, he harassed his successor in the cabinet. For that reason the Gaullists refused to re-elect him to that position after the 1968 legislative election. In 1969, unlike most of FNRI's elected officials, Giscard advocated a "no" vote in the constitutional referendum concerning the regions and the Senate, while De Gaulle had announced his intention to resign if the "no" won; the Gaullists accused him of being responsible for De Gaulle's departure.
During the 1969 presidential campaign he supported the winning candidate Georges Pompidou, after which he returned to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. On the French political scene, he appeared as a young br
Grand Palais
The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées known as the Grand Palais, is a large historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Construction of the Grand Palais began in 1897 following the demolition of the Palais de l'Industrie as part of the preparation works for the Universal Exposition of 1900, which included the creation of the adjacent Petit Palais and Pont Alexandre III, it has been listed since 2000 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. The structure was built in the style of Beaux-Arts architecture as taught by the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris; the building reflects the movement's taste for ornate decoration through its stone facades, the formality of its floor planning and the use of techniques that were innovative at the time, such as its glass vault, its structure made of iron and light steel framing, its use of reinforced concrete. One of its pediments calls it a "monument dedicated by the Republic to the glory of French art", reflecting its original purpose, that of housing the great artistic events of the city of Paris.
The competition to choose the architect was fierce and controversial, resulted in the contract being awarded to a group of four architects, Henri Deglane, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas and Charles Girault, each with a separate area of responsibility. The main space 240 metres long, was constructed with an iron and glass barrel-vaulted roof, making it the last of the large transparent structures inspired by London’s Crystal Palace that were necessary for large gatherings of people before the age of electricity; the main space was connected to the other parts of the palace along an east-west axis by a grand staircase in a style combining Classical and Art Nouveau, but the interior layout has since been somewhat modified. The exterior of this massive palace combines an imposing Classical stone façade with a riot of Art Nouveau ironwork, a number of allegorical statue groups including work by sculptors Paul Gasq, Camille Lefèvre, Alfred Boucher, Alphonse-Amédée Cordonnier and Raoul Verlet. A monumental bronze quadriga by Georges Récipon tops each wing of the main façade.
The one on the Champs-Élysées side depicts Immortality prevailing over Time, the one on the Seine side Harmony triumphing over Discord. The grand inauguration took place 1 May 1900, from the beginning the palace was the site of different kinds of shows in addition to the intended art exhibitions; these included a riding competition that took place annually from 1901 to 1957, but were dedicated to innovation and modernity: the automobile, household appliances, so on. The golden age of the art exhibitions as such lasted for some thirty years, while the last took place in 1947; the first major Henri Matisse retrospective after his death was held at the Grand Palais. The structure had problems that started before it was completed as a result of subsidence caused by a drop in the water table; the builders attempted to compensate for this subsidence, for a tendency of the ground to shift, by sinking supporting posts down to firmer soil, since construction could not be delayed. These measures were only successful.
Further damage occurred. Excessive force applied to structural members during the installation of certain exhibitions such as the Exposition Internationale de la Locomotion Aérienne caused damage, as did acid runoff from the horse shows. Additional problems due to the construction of the building itself revealed themselves over the course of time. Differential rates of expansion and contraction between cast iron and steel members, for example, allowed for water to enter, leading to corrosion and further weakening; when one of the glass ceiling panels fell in 1993, the main space had to be closed for restoration work, was not reopened to the public until 2007. The Palais served as a military hospital during World War I, employing local artists who had not been deployed to the front to decorate hospital rooms or to make moulds for prosthetic limbs; the Nazis put the Palais to use during the Occupation of France in World War II. First used as a truck depot, the Palais housed two Nazi propaganda exhibitions.
The Parisian resistance used the Grand Palais as a headquarters during the Liberation of Paris. On 23 August 1944 an advancing German column was fired upon from a window on the Avenue de Sèlves, the Germans responded with a tank attack upon the Palais; the attack ignited hay, set up for a circus show, over the next 48 hours, thick black smoke from the fire caused serious damage to the building. By 26 August, American jeeps were parked in the nave, followed by tanks from the French 2nd Armored Division, completing the liberation of the building; the Grand Palais has a major police station in the basement whose officers help protect the exhibits on show in the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais the picture exhibition "salons": the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Salon d'Automne, Salon Comparaisons. The building's west wing contains a science museum, the Palais de la Découverte, it was the host venue of the 2010 World Fencing Championships. For the 2011 Monumenta exhibition, sculptor Anish Kapoor was commissioned to create the temporary indoor site-specific installation, Leviathan, an enormous structure that filled half of the main exhibition hall of the Grand Palais.
It was used during the final stage of the Tour de France in 2017, as part of the promotion for Paris' 2024 Summer Olympics bid. The riders rode through the Palais en route to the Champs Élysées. With Paris having been unanimous
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is built the tower. Constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, it was criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world; the Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. The tower is 324 metres tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, the tallest structure in Paris, its base is square. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres. Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.
The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to lift to the first and second levels; the climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is accessible only by lift; the design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centrepiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. Eiffel acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853. In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals".
Eiffel showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, the two engineers asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, other embellishments; the new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin and Sauvestre had taken out, the design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils. Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars..
On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details. After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887; this was signed by Eiffel acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, granted him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years, he established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself. The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and those who objected on artistic grounds; these objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering.
It came to a head as work began at the Champ de Mars: a "Committee of Three Hundred" was formed, led by the prominent architect Charles Garnier and including some of the most important figures of the arts, such as Adolphe Bouguereau, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet. A petition called "Artists against the Eiffel Tower" was sent to the Minister of Works and Commissioner for the Exposition, Charles Alphand, it was published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887: We, painters, sculptors and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name
IMAX
IMAX is a system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors and theaters known for having large screens with a tall aspect ratio and steep stadium seating. Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr, William C. Shaw were the co-founders of what would be named the IMAX Corporation, they developed the first IMAX cinema projection standards in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Canada. Unlike conventional projectors, the film runs horizontally so that the image width is greater than the width of the film; when IMAX was introduced, it was a radical change in the movie-going experience. Viewers were treated to the scene of a curved giant screen more than seven stories tall and steep stadium seating that made for a visually immersive experience, along with a sound system, far superior to the audio at typical theaters in the years prior to the advent of THX; some IMAX theaters have a dome screen geometry which can give the viewer an more immersive feel. Over the decades since its introduction, IMAX evolved to include "3D" stereoscopic films, introduced in January 1998, began to proliferate with a transition away from analog film into the digital era.
Beginning in May of 1991, a visceral dimension of the movie experience was added by having the audience's seats mounted on a full-motion platform as an amusement park ride in IMAX ride film theaters. Switching to digital projection, introduced in July 2008, came at a steep cost in image quality, with 2K projectors having an order of magnitude less resolution. Maintaining the same 7-story giant screen size would only make this loss more noticeable, so many new theaters were being built with smaller screen sizes, yet being marketed with the same brand name of "IMAX"; these newer theaters with the much lower resolution and much smaller screens were soon being referred to by the derogatory name "LieMAX" because the company did not make this major distinction clear to the public, going so far as to build the smallest "IMAX" screen having 10 times less area than the largest while persisting with the exact same brand name. Since 2002, some feature films have been converted into IMAX format for displaying in IMAX theatres, some have been shot in IMAX.
By late 2017, 1,302 IMAX theatre systems were installed in 1,203 commercial multiplexes, 13 commercial destinations, 86 institutional settings in 75 countries, with less than a quarter of these having the capability to show 70mm film at the resolution of the large format as conceived. The IMAX film standard uses 70 mm film run through the projector horizontally; this technique produces an area, nine times larger than the 35 mm format, three times larger than 70 mm film, run conventionally through the projector in a vertical orientation. The desire to increase the visual impact of film has a long history. In 1929, Fox introduced Fox Grandeur, the first 70 mm film format, but it fell from use. In the 1950s, the potential of 35 mm film to provide wider projected images was explored in the processes of CinemaScope and VistaVision, following multi-projector systems such as Cinerama. While impressive, Cinerama was difficult to install. During Expo 67 in Montreal, the National Film Board of Canada's In the Labyrinth and Ferguson's Man and the Polar Regions both used multi-projector, multi-screen systems.
Each encountered technical difficulties that led them to found a company called "Multiscreen", with a goal of developing a simpler approach. The single-projector/single-camera system they settled upon was designed and built by Shaw based upon a novel "Rolling Loop" film-transport technology purchased from Peter Ronald Wright Jones, a machine shop worker from Brisbane, Australia. Film projectors do not continuously flow the film in front of the bulb, but instead "stutter" the film travel so that each frame can be illuminated in a momentarily paused flicker; this requires a mechanical apparatus to stagger the travel of the film strip. The older technology of running 70 mm film vertically through the projector used only five sprocket perforations on the sides of each frame, however the IMAX method used fifteen perforations per frame; the previous mechanism was inadequate to handle this mechanical staggering, three time larger, so Jones's invention was necessary for the novel IMAX projector method with its horizontal film feed.
As it became clear that a single, large-screen image had more impact than multiple smaller ones and was a more viable product direction, Multiscreen changed its name to IMAX. Cofounder Graeme Ferguson explained how the name IMAX originated: "... the incorporation date September, 1967.... Came a year or two later. We first called the company Multiscreen Corporation because that, in fact, was what people knew us as.... After about a year, our attorney informed us that we could never trademark Multivision, it was too generic. It was a descriptive word; the words that you can copyright are words like Xerox or Coca-Cola. If the name is descriptive, you can't trademark it. So we were sitting at lunch one day in a Hungarian restaurant in Montreal and we worked out a name on a place mat on which we wrote all the possible names we could think of. We kept working with the idea of maximum image. We turned it around and came up with IMAX." The name change happened more than two years because a key patent filed on January 16, 1970, was assigned under the original name Multiscreen Corporation, Limited.
IMAX Chief Administration O
Jeanne d'Arc (Frémiet)
Jeanne d'Arc is an 1874 French gilded bronze equestrian sculpture of Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Frémiet. The outdoor statue is prominently displayed in the Place des Pyramides in Paris; the original statue was commissioned by the French government after the defeat of the country in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. It is the only public commission of the state from 1870 to 1914, called the Golden Age of statuary in Paris, the other statues were funded by private subscriptions; the sculptor took as his model Aimée Girod, a young woman from Domrémy, Joan of Arc's village in Lorraine. The statue was inaugurated in 1874; the pedestal was designed by the architect Paul Abadie. The artist, who made another version of the monument for the city of Nancy in 1889, replaced the horse of the Parisian monument 10 years by a copy of the smaller Nancy one, which earned him criticism; the monument was classified as a historic monument on March 31, 1992. Reviving a tradition from the far-right leagues, on every May Day, the National Front holds an annual ceremony in her honour at the statue.
The original work is located at the Place des Pyramides, in Paris, near where Joan of Arc was wounded during her failed attempt to take Paris. Other copies can be seen at: Nancy, New Orleans, Portland, Melbourne, Australia. List of public art in Philadelphia Media related to Statue of Jeanne d'Arc in Paris, Place des Pyramides at Wikimedia Commons
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, it is sometimes used or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub. Although experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the 19th century, they were adopted by several navies. Submarines were first used during World War I, are now used in many navies large and small. Military uses include attacking enemy surface ships, attacking other submarines, aircraft carrier protection, blockade running, ballistic missile submarines as part of a nuclear strike force, conventional land attack, covert insertion of special forces. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage and facility inspection and maintenance. Submarines can be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair. Submarines are used in tourism, for undersea archaeology.
Most large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical ends and a vertical structure located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the "sail" in American usage and "fin" in European usage. A "conning tower" was a feature of earlier designs: a separate pressure hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a propeller at the rear, various hydrodynamic control fins. Smaller, deep-diving and specialty submarines may deviate from this traditional layout. Submarines use diving planes and change the amount of water and air in ballast tanks to change buoyancy for submerging and surfacing. Submarines have one of the widest ranges of capabilities of any vessel, they range from small autonomous examples and one- or two-person vessels that operate for a few hours, to vessels that can remain submerged for six months—such as the Russian Typhoon class, the biggest submarines built.
Submarines can work at greater depths than are practical for human divers. Modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe, which in turn evolved from the diving bell. Whereas the principal meaning of "submarine" is an armed, submersible warship, the more general meaning is for any type of submersible craft; the definition as of 1899 was for any type of "submarine boat". By naval tradition, submarines are still referred to as "boats" rather than as "ships", regardless of their size. In other navies with a history of large submarine fleets they are "boats". According to a report in Opusculum Taisnieri published in 1562: Two Greeks submerged and surfaced in the river Tagus near the City of Toledo several times in the presence of The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, without getting wet and with the flame they carried in their hands still alight. In 1578, the English mathematician William Bourne recorded in his book Inventions or Devises one of the first plans for an underwater navigation vehicle.
A few years the Scottish mathematician and theologian John Napier wrote in his Secret Inventions the following: "These inventions besides devises of sayling under water with divers, other devises and strategems for harming of the enemyes by the Grace of God and worke of expert Craftsmen I hope to perform." It's unclear whether he carried out his idea. The first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was designed and built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutchman in the service of James I of England, it was propelled by means of oars. By the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England. In 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion, his design used leather bags. A mechanism was used to cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemen's Magazine reported that a similar design had been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. Further design improvement stagnated for over a century, until application of new technologies for propulsion and stability.
The first military submarine was the Turtle, a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person. It was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, the first to use screws for propulsion. In 1800, France built a human-powered submarine designed by the Nautilus; the French gave up on the experiment in 1804, as did the British when they considered Fulton's submarine design. In 1864, late in the American Civil War, the Confederate navy's H. L. Hunley became the first military submarine to sink an enemy vessel, the Union sloop-of-war USS Housatonic. In the aftermath of its successful attack against the ship, the Hunley sank because it was too close to its own exploding torpedo. In 1866, the Sub Marine Explorer was the first submarine to dive, cruise underwater, resurface under the control of the crew; the design by German American Julius H. Kroehl incorporated elements that are still used in modern submarines.
In 1866, the Flach was built at the request of the Chilean government, by Karl Flach, a German engineer and immigrant
Conciergerie
The Conciergerie is a building in Paris, located on the west of the Île de la Cité a prison but presently used for law courts. It was part of the former royal palace, the Palais de la Cité, which consisted of the Conciergerie, Palais de Justice and the Sainte-Chapelle. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were taken from the Conciergerie to be executed by guillotine at a number of locations around Paris; the west part of the island was the site of a Merovingian palace, was known as the Palais de la Cité. From the 10th to the 14th centuries, it was the main palace of the medieval Kings of France. During the reigns of Louis IX and Philippe IV the Merovingian palace was extended and fortified more extensively. Louis IX added the Sainte-Chapelle and associated galleries, while Philippe IV created the towered facade on the Seine river side and a large hall. Both are excellent examples of French secular architecture of the period; the Sainte-Chapelle was built in the French royal style to house the crown of thorns, brought back from the Crusades and to serve as a royal chapel.
The "Grande Salle" was one of the largest in Europe, its lower story, known as "La Salle des Gens d'Armes" survives at 64m long, 27.5m wide and 8.5m high. It was used as a dining room for the 2,000 staff members, it lit by many windows, now blocked. It was used for royal banquets and judicial proceedings; the neighboring Salle des Gardes was used as an antechamber to the Great Hall above, where the king held his lit de justice. The early Valois kings continued to modify the palace during the 14th century, but Charles V abandoned the palace during 1358, relocating across the river to the Louvre Palace; the palace continued to serve an administrative function and still included the chancellery and French Parliament. In the king's absence, he appointed a concierge to command of the palace, a fact which gave the palace its eventual name. During 1391, part of the building was converted for use as a prison and took its name from the ruling office, its prisoners were a mixture of political prisoners. In common with other prisons of the time, the treatment of prisoners was dependent on their wealth and associates.
Wealthy or influential prisoners got their own cells with a bed and materials for reading and writing. Less-well-off prisoners could afford to pay for furnished cells known as pistoles, which would be equipped with a rough bed and a table; the poorest, known as the pailleux from the paille that they slept on, would be confined to dark, vermin-infested cells known as oubliettes. In keeping with the name, they were left to live or die in conditions that were ideal for the plague and other infectious diseases, which were rife in the unsanitary conditions of the prison. Three towers survive from the medieval Conciergerie: the Caesar Tower, named in honor of the Roman Emperors; the building was extended during the reigns of kings with France's first public clock being installed about 1370. The current clock dates from 1535; the ten month Reign of Terror had a profound effect on France. More than 40,000 people died from execution and imprisonment, France would not be a republic again for nearly half a century.
The National Convention enacted the Law of Suspects on September 17, 1793. This act declared that anyone considered a counter-revolutionary or enemy of the republic was guilty of treason and, condemned to death; the Revolutionary Tribunal was set up in the Palace of Justice. The two fates for those sent before the tribunal were acquittal or death, with no possibility of appeal. Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, a radical, was named public prosecutor; the Tribunal sat in the Great Hall between 2 April 1793 and 31 May 1795 and sent nearly 2,600 prisoners to the guillotine. The Conciergerie prison became the main penitentiary of a network of prisons throughout Paris, was the last place of housing for more than 2,700 people, who were summarily executed by guillotine; the dank dungeons were a stark contrast to the beautiful architecture of the palace above. The quality of life of the prisoners was based on their personal wealth and the whims of the jailers; the revolutionary period continued the prison's tradition of interning prisoners based on wealth, such that wealthier prisoners could rent a bed for 27 livres 12 sous for the first month, 22 livres 10 sous for subsequent months.
When the price was decreased to 15 livres, the commanders of the prison made a fortune: as the Terror escalated, a prisoner could pay for a bed and be executed a few days freeing the bed for a new inmate who would pay as well. One memoirist termed the Conciergerie "the most lucrative furnished lodgings in Paris". Only celebrity prisoners were assigned cells to themselves. Most of the pistole inmates were stuffed into a single room that abutted a local hospital, making disease an inevitability; the cramped cells were infested with rats, the stench of urine permeated every room. All the prisoners, except those locked in the dungeons, were allowed to walk about the prisoners' gallery from 8 a.m. to an hour before sunset. Roll call was always a tortuous proceeding because many of the jail
