This tower is one of the last Gothic remains of the church Saint-Jacques-de-Boucherie of which it was the bell tower.
Being its name due to its previous position in the centre of the butchers’ shops zone, this church was situated in the present Saint-Jacques plaza, probably from the Carolingian epoch, and it was destroyed in 1797. It was the meeting place of the pilgrims that departed for Saint-Jacques of Compostella, a very famous pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, devoted to S.Jacques apostle. Blaise Pascal’s statue, positioned at the ground of the tower reminds its barometric experiences of the Puy-de-Dôme. A statue of S.Jacques lies in the northwest edge, the platform where a small meteorological station is installed since1891.