The Cour Carrée is a perfectly square courtyard, measuring about one hundred and sixty meters on each side, enclosed by eight wings with matching pavilions. It occupies the precise footprint of the twelfth-century fortress built by King Philip Augustus. Where that medieval stronghold once protected Paris with thick stone walls and a moat, successive French monarchs spent two hundred and fifty years gradually replacing the military architecture with the balanced, ornate facades of the Renaissance.
Cour Carrée
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