Temple, Le. Complex of buildings east of central Paris originating with a 13th-c. tower, the headquarters of the Knights Templar, then of the Order of St John (‘Knights of Malta’), joined by many younger sons of noble families. In the later 17th c., under Philippe de Vendôme as grand prior, the debauched suppers of the Temple were famous, and until the Regency it was a centre of libertinage and Epicurean poetry, from drinking songs to the works of Chaulieu and La Fare. The tower, used as a prison for Louis XVI and others, was demolished in 1811.
[Christopher Betts]
