Le Palais de l'Isle

Le Palais de l'Isle during the day and at night, illuminated from within and from without. Both photos were taken from the pont Perrière, on the east side of le palais, the side of the lake.

The most photographed building in Annecy, Le Palais de l'Isle was contructed on a little island on what is now the most prominent canal of veille ville, that which runs around the south side of les Jardins de l'Europe and west into town. Le palais is so called because it was constructed as a palace. It was quickly converted into a prison, however, and remained one throughout the Middle Ages. Today, it is a museum -- and no longer on an island, really, as a bridge with its own buildings is so well integrated with the west side of le palais that one can barely notice that one has traversed over the island.

The kitchen, where shitty meals were made for prisoners for centuries. (Getting this shot was almost impossible, as people were having their photos taken in the kitchen. No sooner would one group finish than another would start, despite that I was waiting. After two long photo ops, I began to tell them in French to "move" and to "evacuate the building." They didn't know enough French to get the humorous confrontationalism, they fortunately did move not long after.) In the northeast corner of the palais proper, one finds this vertical, glassless window in one of the rooms that was a prison cell. The window actually begins at the bottom of a brief staircase and is not much above the level of the canal. It is worth noting that this is almost directly below the holes that empty the old toilets into the canal, allowing for the possibility of a nice splash effect. Inside, one finds a charming stone structure of roughly three floors, the staircases emptying onto a difficult floorplan that makes getting lost a real possibility. The lower level remains much as it was during its prison years, complete with a kitchen where soup was served to prisoners, bread and meat and virtually everything else having been too expensive. There too one will find chamber after chamber where twenty or so prisoners crowded together without proper toilets, shared germs, and tried to sleep in the freezing cold of a stone structure that was colder than the cold outside. Prisoners of all types were crowded together indiscriminately, from the coldest murderer to those given a sentence of years for stealing bread to eat. Needless to say, the survival rate was not great. The second level, and several rooms off the staircases but not on any particular level as such, has been converted to a museum dedicated to the history of Annecy. Here one can see paintings of Annecy as well as a model of the town just before industrialization and charts depicting quite useful information. One room is dedicated entirely to twenty-six small displays, the subjects of which each begin with a unique letter of the alphabet. One can also see a bathroom, a small room in the corner that empties one's waste through a hole directly into the canal below -- from which people drank, not strange at all in an era when people generally tossed the contents of their toilets from their windows, into the street below, and sometimes onto passers-by.

The illustrious Hip Hop exhibit. Need I say more? The third level was dedicated, when I saw it in the summer of 2003, to a museum of Hip Hop. No, that is not a misprint. In this medieval palace and prison that people pay to visit in order to see and to learn the venerable history of the ediface and the town, the entire top floor is devoted to Hip Hop culture. Wire dummies clad in Hip Hop garmets stand inside glass cases beside other such garments and photos of Hip Hop culture. Video monitors, including one in the medieval bathroom, play artsy and thoroughly boring documentaries on the phenomenon of Hip Hop. All of this is absurdly juxtaposed to the stone walls of the structure and did nothing but displease the tourists, who were actually interested in the history of Annecy and France. But, I am told, it is a rotating exhibition.

Your illustrious author standing in the courtyard. The structure of the palace / prison terminates to the west, giving way to a courtyard enclosed by walls on either side, giving the appearance from outside of one continuous structure -- although, upon closer examination, the color of the wall changes and one can see the tops of trees peering out from this section. While such courtyards were, of course, quite common, the incorporation of the courtyard's outer walls into the line of the structure and of the island produces a nice effect. Just past this pleasant enclosure lies a small chapel, an even more obligatory element, though this one also benefits from the structure's line, taking a roughly triangular shape to form the photogenic western corner of the palais, complete with windows. Most of the chapel's statuary and decoration was destroyed by revolutionaries, and the chapel today is a little museum exhibit with the remains.

The Night They Set the Canal, and Le Palais de l'Isle, on Fire

Here we see the man with the torch in the canal, wading in front of le palais de l'isle, still early in his route. The wood in front of le palais is just starting to burn. Here we see the wood aflame against le palais de l'isle. In the right of the image, one can make out the man wading in the canal, his torch part of the furthest rightmost flame. In the left of the image, a man who stood in front of me and unfortunately did not fall over the railing, thus clearing my view. If anything, his presence can offer a representation of the massive crowds gathered religiously to view the burning, a ritual not so different from people once gathering to view the burning of a witch or heretic. Here the burning has reached the wooden outline of the boat. The man with the torch is there, spreading the flame. Taken not long before the following shot, here one can better make out of burning outline of a boat. Here one sees le palais on the right, with the sections burned earlier still hot in places, as the wooden outline of a boat and the surrounding ribbons of wood burn bright. At this point, the man wading with the torch is past the boat, lighting the last strands. On the right, one can see the bank of the canal, along which run restaurants, teeming with observers, now thrown into stark contrast by the flame before them. A few days after Bastille Day, I and my friends noticed curved wooden constructs on the canal by Le Palais de l'Isle. They curved from the edge of the canal to le palais, running high into the windows, winding down the canal and forming the outline of a boat before continuing. Rumor began to circulate that a boat was going to be burned -- possibly more than one -- on the lake. As it turned out, they lit the wooden constructs that we had seen on fire. That night, drinking at a local bar frequented by internationals, we downed our beer and headed out, shortly before midnight, in time to see what would be burned. The other students, lost in the crowd, followed me through the mob as a natural leader who walked fast yet could monitor others' progress. I held up a hand high as I moved aggressively through the people dining outside and pushed my way through a single-file human passageway. Passing by the wood on the side of le palais and finding a space, we decided to press on to the bridge. There, where men had sat painting tourists during the day, the thickest crowds seemed to obscure the view entirely, save that of the most tall. I began to wedge myself into the throng, to make my way to the railing, lit a cigarette and extracted my camera before the proceedings started. A man climbed into the canal and lit a torch, then waded over to le palais and began lighting the wood on fire, passing the torch along the length of the wood. Thick black smoke filled the air from near the bridge, too close to be seen. The man waded along the canal, lighting more and more of the wood, unable to keep pace with the earlier sections, already burned out. He lit the wooden outline of a boat on the side of the structure, and for a time one could see the outline of a boat burning bright red against the water and the dark. There was not much wood past that, but he lit it in turn, and we watched the burning wood slowly grow dimmer as the crowds dispersed. Then, our group having dispersed and found various points of view, we each made our separate way back to the bar, meeting still others on the way. It was not long after midnight, and none of us had yet had our fill of liquor and conversation. After another beer, finding the conversation lacking. Not long before our departure, a table had greeted me with uproar and I had spontaneously climbed onto their wobbling table. Now all seemed muted, all seemed in decline; we sat in silence amidst music too loud to hear ourselves talk, and the few women dancing in their seats to some unknown horrible beat did little to arrouse me. I felt as I do after a poetry reading, after chanting unique incantations of lines before a crowd that, too late in the evening, cannot stand to think too much: I had taken the table, had led them through the throng, and now they sat like zombies in an absynthe haze. Perhaps it was the post-coital letdown after seeing the pouring flame. In any case, I finished one beer and left for home.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT THIS TIME

This is the fourth entry in this series. The three others completed are as follows:

La France (Apollonian Bacchanalia #32)

An essay on France and the French.

Le Beaujolais (Apollonian Bacchanalia #56)

Covering the region famous for its wine.

Autour de lac d'Annecy (Apollonian Bacchanalia #57)

Travelling around le lac d'Annecy, including Le Château de Menthon and la cascade de Seythenex.

Your assignment this time (in lieu of paying for this article) is to tell someone about PersianCaesar.com. This site has so far been kept free of banners and pop-ups, despite losing money, to provide you with a purer web experience. Please encourage this by encouraging visitors, which at least makes me happy. And thanks. Really, thanks. It's much appreciated.

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