Файл:La Tour St. Jacques La Boucherie à Paris ca. 1867.jpg

In the early 1850s, the tower was disengaged from the surrounding buildings, the lower part of the Tour Saint-Jacques was rebuilt to function as a civic monument, its destroyed statuary was remade, and the surrounding area was redesigned as a park. The surface of the new Square Saint-Jacques was lowered in order keep the nearby streets level, and a raised platform with steps was built as a transition between the old and new ground levels. Visitors could ascend the tower for a panoramic view of Paris. "Galignani's New Paris Guide for 1860" remarked upon the transformation: "This interesting structure now occupies the centre of an elegant square laid out as a garden, once intersected by the filthiest streets of the metropolis, haunted by vendors of rags and other commodities of a similar nature."

Like a draftsman who might exaggerate the scale of a monument to impress the viewer with its great height, Soulier chose an elevated point of view at the corner of the rue de Rivoli and the Boulevard de Sebastopol from which the restored tower could be seen rising in the center of the composition, unobstructed and dwarfing all neighboring buildings.