This little triangle of green at the very tip of the island is the Square du Vert-Galant. The air is cooler down here, the river is close enough to hear against the stone, and the boats pass at eye level.
Notice how far DOWN you are. The square sits about seven meters below the streets behind you — close to the level the island stood at two thousand years ago. Paris has been piling itself on top of itself ever since. Down here, you're standing roughly where it started. A Celtic tribe called the Parisii settled this island around two hundred fifty B-C. They fished this river, traded up and down it, and minted their own gold coins — beautiful ones, with wild-eyed horses on them. Then Rome showed up, as Rome did, and the fishing village became a provincial town called Lutetia. The name didn't stick. The tribe's did.
The square's own name is a joke at a king's expense. Vert-Galant was the nickname Parisians gave Henri the Fourth — it means something like the old flirt. He ran through mis
tresses at a pace that impressed a city that is hard to impress. His statue stands on the bridge above you, and the park named for his love life sits at his feet. A weeping willow grows at the very point of the island, right at the water. Every few decades it wears out, and the gardeners replace it with a sapling grown from a cutting of the old one. Technically, it's been the same tree since the e
