The masons Jean de Felin, Julien Ménart and Jean de Revier built the tower from 1509 to 1523, during the reign of Francis I. Wholesale butchers from the nearby Les Halles market funded the decoration. It is a Flamboyant Gothic tower, 171 feet (52 m) tall, and the article names no separate architect.
It is all that remains of the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, sold for its building materials on the condition that the tower be kept. The article gives the demolition as 1797 in the lead and 1793 later. In 1824 the tower served as a shot tower. The City of Paris repurchased it in 1836.
Théodore Ballu restored it under the Second Empire and placed it on a pedestal in a small park. A statue of Blaise Pascal at its base commemorates his pressure experiments. UNESCO listed it in 1998, and the park reopened on April 18, 2009.
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