Knights Templar Cathedral

Cathedrale de Payens is one of the locations visited by JC Denton in Deus Ex. It is a sub-section of Paris, located in the 14th arrondissement.

Background
The Cathedral was built by the Templars during the Middle Ages and functioned as their Paris headquarters. Just before the 1307 crackdown on the Templars ordered by French King Philip IV, the Templars had moved their gold to the cathedral, where it has remained ever since. The Nazis plundered a third of it during WW2 and were preparing to move the rest to Berlin in 1944, but did not get enough time to do so. Most of the gold remains in the Cathedral. An MJ12 trooper in the Cathedral says that there are twenty tons of gold in the building.

The Cathedral was bought in 1918 by a group of European entrepreneurs and renovated by them as a corporate retreat. In 2051, UNATCO and Interpol conducted a joint raid on the Cathedral, severely weakening the Knights Templar.

In 2052, the Cathedral is occupied by Majestic 12. JC accomplished two goals at the Cathedral find data on the cure to the Gray Death virus and transmit it to Everett, and find the gold, when after Everett sends Chad and an NSF platoon loaned to him to recover the gold.

There are still some original Knights Templar employed personnel working at the Cathedral, although now they work for MJ12. They include a chef (who has to prepare breakfast for dozens of soldiers) who helps JC find the basement where the gold is stored. When JC arrives at the Cathedral, it's guarded by numerous MJ12 troopers, MJ12 commandos, and bots, as are the nearby streets. The doors to the Cathedral are closed. A key is in the Cathedral's library, which contains all four volumes of Richard Bagent's A History of the Knights Templar.

Nearby the Cathedral is a metro station from which trains headed for the De Gaulle Airport, the Place-Charles-de-Gaulle (Etoile), rue Gambetta, Cours de la Madeleine, and Chatelet leave regularly.