La Tour Dagobert

This is a Paris landmark that no longer exists... and that, for a while, I thought never existed. The tower you see in the righthand centre of the photo is part of a cardboard model of the Île de la Cité shown at Paris' Musée Carnivalet: this represents what was thought to be a light/guard tower overseeing Paris' first 10th-century port. Normally standing to the south of the rue des Ursins, this tower, falling to ruins, was destroyed in around 1910. I could find no indication of its real existence other than a mention in Balzac's "The Human Comedy", but I later found proof in its central column that once supported a winding staircase, today mounted on a wall of the Cluny museum of medieval history. Legend would have it that it dated from King Dagobert's 11th-century reign, but more than likely it was built during the early 16th century at the same time (and in the same sculpted style) as the Rive Droite's "Tour de Jean-sans-peur" on the rue Etienne Marcel.