The Conciergerie from the Seine — its medieval towers rising above the Pont au Change, a Paris tram crossing the bridge in the foreground, the Napoleonic "N" medallions on the bridge piers catching the light. The Conciergerie began as a royal palace in the 10th century and ended as the most feared prison in France: it was here that Marie Antoinette spent her last weeks before the guillotine, and where the Revolutionary Tribunal processed thousands of condemned during the Terror. By the time this card was made it had become a tourist monument, but the towers still carry the weight of all that history. A sender wrote to a young woman named Mitzi in Lower Austria, describing Paris in terms that suggest a first visit — the scale of it all, they wrote, was simply unimaginable.

• Caption: Le palais de justice et la Conciergerie
• Series: Paris et ses Merveilles, no. 345
• Publisher: Edit. d'Art "GUY", 38 rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, Paris
• Postmark: Paris, c.1920s–1930s (date partially legible)
• Status: Posted