“These imposing stones” you whisper. “They’ve seen it all haven’t they?” Before you stands the Pavillon d’octroi a silent witness to Parisian history. This isn’t just a building. It’s a survivor a piece of a wall that once defined Paris. King Louis XVI commissioned it. He wanted a 24-kilometer wall with 55 entry points. The goal was simple to tax goods entering the city. This ambitious project the most extensive of the Ancien Régime was masterminded by architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux.
Ledoux envisioned grand propylaea. These weren’t just gates. They were monumental entrances. Think of ancient Greek sanctuaries. These pavilions declared the state’s power to anyone paying the entry tax. The Pavillon d’octroi you see today is one of two symmetrical structures. They stand facing each other on the Orleans road. Each is four stories high. A central staircase leads to a porch with three arches. These arches are supported by Tuscan columns. Unique cylindrical and cubic drums alternate with the columns. They extend into the strongly projecting rustication of the ground floor.
The central arch forms a serlienne a design with a central semicircular arch flanked by two rectangular ones. The only sculpted frieze the work of Jean-Guillaume Moitte features elegant antique-dressed female figures holding medallions with the coats of arms of towns connected to this barrier. The roof was originally slate but was later replaced with zinc in the 1840s. Originally the Pavillon d’octroi served a crucial purpose. It was a tax collection point. The wall itself was nicknamed the “Wall of Hell” by the Parisians. A testament to the unpopularity of these taxes.
The French Revolution didn’t take kindly to these symbols of royal power and tax inequality. In July 1789 the “Wall of Hell” was attacked. It was looted and burned on July 13. The wall was later repaired. Its name changed to the “Equality Barrier”. It even housed employees while tax collection resumed. Plans from 1790-1791 detailing this reconstruction are kept at the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris. Tax collection was abolished in May 1791 but reinstated in October 1798. The Pavillon d’octroi had various uses over time. It even became a barracks for the municipal guard and the departmental gendarmerie in the 1820s.
In 1860 Paris expanded. The octroi moved to the Thiers fortifications. Ledoux’s wall was demolished. The Pavillon d’octroi however survived. It became home to the City of Paris’s Public Works Service. Later it housed the Materials Testing Laboratory and the General Inspection of Quarries. The East Pavilion was occupied by the Paris Guard until 1888. Then the Quarry Service moved in. A square was laid out around it starting in 1887. Thanks to the efforts of the Commission du Vieux-Paris. these pavilions were spared from demolition. They were classified as historical monuments in 1907 along with other surviving barriers. So next time you are near this magnificent building remember the stories it holds. The Pavillon d’octroi a living monument to the ever-changing face of Paris.