TRAVELOGUE -PARIS
This is the hotel room where I planned my October 2003 outings in search of Marguerite Porete.
My first outing was to the place where the theology professors of the University of Paris conducted their research,
passing judgement on materials excerpted for them from Marguerite's book by the Inquisitor.
These Doctors of the Church affiliated with the University of Paris at the Sorbonne deliberated in a church and
monastery complex dedicated to Saint Matthusen, then the headquarters of the university. That complex is no longer
there. It was torn down in the 1960s to allow the current Cluny museum and gardens to be constructed. The walls
of one alcove was preserved, however. It is across the street from the park that is part of the Cluny museum grounds.
Here is that alcove wall, on Rue de Cluny:
From that wall, it is only a block to the University:
The tree in the picture above belongs to a tiny park in front of the University building:
In case you couldn't read it in the above photo, here is a close-up:
Across the street from the alcove is the Place de Cluny, where my favorite museum, dedicated to the Middle Ages, is located. Here we are in the Cluny gardens looking back at the alcove wall across the street.
This is what it says on the fence facing the alcove:
I'll take a quick walk to the museum building to show you a nice spiral staircase and a work of art:
We'll just take a small step into the entrance (emergency exit only now):
Just inside is this nice staircase:
And in a corner this nice sculpture of a man who needs to take a break from his studies and meditations:
The Place where Margaret was burnt to death was about a 20 minute walk from where her accusers and judges studied excerpts from her book and deliberated until they reached a verdict: heretical!
On the way one crosses the Seine in front of the Notre Dame:
While I am walking here, I am eating a wonderful Parisian sandwich with cheese and veggies:
Where she was burned to death was the Field of Greve. It is now part of the grounds in front
of the Hotel de Ville, city hall. Across the street is the only reference to her, a bistro named Marguerite. 
A few steps beyond the bistro, and we are facing the former Place de Greve:
Looking back from that fountain:
And of course there are flowers:
This place sits in front of city hall, Hotel de Ville. City Hall was there in Marguerite's day too, but then it was a smaller edifice. It is now a massive building:
The building is a work of art:
And it decorated with art. These two ladies guard the main entrance. This first one seems to have calipers in her hand, promising precise and honest measures, perhaps.
The facial expression on this second one seems a bit incongruous with her action. Maybe she is a lawyer explaining something she is pointing to in the tablets of the law:
Just to the right of this building stands a historical marker celebrating the annual ritual pyre tradition celebrated in the Field of Greves, with a combustible figure on a huge pyre and the King personally lighting the fire. An annual festival of the pyre that lasted for hundreds of years, until the Revolution.
Behind the wall is a garden:
The marker is located on the sidewalk, from it the bistro is easily seen:
It stands on the sidewalk that faces the Seine.
Margaret and the hundreds of others burnt there are not mentioned in this historical marker. There is only mention of this annual feast of the pyre. Macabre? That's history.
So, this is where Marguerite's life ends. But if you read the history pages you will readily see that her message went out without here, and her book is now considered and published as one of the Classics of Western Spirituality!