Square Jean XXIII — The Hidden Garden

Square Jean XXIII in Paris is the city's oldest public neighborhood garden, created in 1848 on the former site of the Archbishop's Palace. Originally built in 1161 for Bishop Maurice de Sully, the palace was destroyed by an anticlerical mob in 1831. The garden also overlooks Notre-Dame Cathedral's 28 flying buttresses, which extend up to 15 meters.

Paris · from the walk “From the Cathedral to the Iron Lady” · audio ~3 min · Generated March 2026

Listen · 2:50

Square Jean XXIII, Paris

• Square Jean XXIII was created in Paris in 1848, making it the city's oldest public neighborhood garden.
• An anticlerical mob destroyed the original 1161 Archbishop's Palace at Square Jean XXIII on February 13, 1831.
• Twenty-eight flying buttresses reaching up to 15 meters were added around Notre-Dame Cathedral after construction began in 1163.
• A commemorative oak tree was planted in Square Jean XXIII on June 27, 1998, by Cardinal Lustiger.

What historical building stood at Square Jean XXIII in Paris before the garden was created?

Take a deep breath... and look around you. You're standing in one of Parizhan's best-kept secrets. This quiet garden, Square Jean Vingt-Trois, is actually the Oldest public neighborhood garden in all of Pari... created in eighteen forty-eight, years before Baron Oussman redesigned the city.......... But this peaceful green pocket hides a violent past. You see, you're standing on the exact spot where the Archbishop's Palace once stood. It was a grand residence, first built in eleven sixty-one for Bishop Moris de Sully, the very man who launched the construction of Notr-Dam. For centuries, archbishops lived here in splendor. Then, on the thirteenth of February, eighteen thirty-one... an anticlerical mob swept through Pari. They ransacked the church of San-Zherman-l'Oxerois, then marched here, to this very spot. They pillaged the palace, set it ablaze, and tore it apart stone by stone. What the Revolution couldn't destroy... the rioters of eighteen thirty-one finished.......... And the story gets darker. There was a small church squeezed between Notr-Dam and this garden... Saint-Denis-du-Pas, demolished in eighteen thirteen. Almost no one remembers it even existed.......... Now, turn toward the cathedral. Those soaring stone arms reaching out from the walls? Those are the famous flying buttresses, and here's what most people don't know... Notr-Dam wasn't Originally designed with them. After construction began in eleven sixty-three, the thin Gothic walls started cracking under pressure, pushing dangerously outward. The architects had to Invent a solution. A total of twenty-eight flying buttresses now encircle the apse and choir alone, and the later ones at the back, right in front of you, reach an astonishing fifteen meters from wall to counter-support.......... And that oak tree near the fountain? It was planted on the twenty-seventh of June, nineteen ninety-eight, by Cardinal Lustiger in memory of Archbishop Denizh-Ogust Affre, who was killed Exactly one hundred and fifty years earlier. In June eighteen forty-eight, as Pari tore itself apart in civil war, Affre climbed a barricade in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, holding a green branch as a sign of peace. He'd barely spoken a few words... when a stray bullet struck him down. He died two days later. A shepherd who gave his life for his flock, right here in the shadow of Notr-Dam.