Category: Île-de-France

Bois de Boulogne

 

Wikipedia

The Bois de Boulogne is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was created between 1852 and 1858 during the reign of the Emperor Napoleon III.

It is the second-largest park in Paris, slightly smaller than the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern side of the city. It covers an area of 845 hectares (2088 acres), which is about two and a half times the area of Central Park in New York and slightly less (88%) than that of Richmond Park in London.

Within the boundaries of the Bois de Boulogne are an English landscape garden with several lakes and a cascade; two smaller botanical and landscape gardens, the Château de Bagatelle and the Pré-Catelan; a zoo and amusement park in the Jardin d’Acclimatation; GoodPlanet Foundation‘s Domaine de Longchamp dedicated to ecology and humanism, The Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil, a complex of greenhouses holding a hundred thousand plants; two tracks for horse racing, the Hippodrome de Longchamp and the Auteuil Hippodrome; a tennis stadium where the French Open tennis tournament is held each year; and other attractions.

For the two 1896 short films, see Bois de Boulogne (film).

History

A hunting preserve, royal châteaux, and a historic balloon flight

The Bois de Boulogne is a remnant of the ancient oak forest of Rouvray, which included the present-day forests of Montmorency, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Chaville, and Meudon. Dagobert, the King of the Franks (629-639), hunted bears, deer, and other game in the forest. His grandson, Childeric II, gave the forest to the monks of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, who founded several monastic communities there. Philip Augustus (1180–1223) bought back the main part of the forest from the monks to create a royal hunting reserve. In 1256, Isabelle de France, sister of Saint-Louis, founded the Abbey of Longchamp at the site of the present hippodrome.

The Bois received its present name from a chapel, Notre Dame de Boulogne la Petite, which was built in the forest at the command of Philip IV of France (1268–1314). In 1308, Philip made a pilgrimage to Boulogne-sur-Mer, on the French coast, to see a statue of the Virgin Mary which was reputed to inspire miracles. He decided to build a church with a copy of the statue in a village in the forest not far from Paris, in order to attract pilgrims. The chapel was built after Philip’s death between 1319 and 1330, in what is now Boulogne-Billancourt.

During the Hundred Years’ War, the forest became a sanctuary for robbers and sometimes a battleground. In 1416-17, the soldiers of John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy, burned part of the forest in their successful campaign to capture Paris. Under Louis XI, the trees were replanted, and two roads were opened through the forest.

In 1526, King Francis I of France began a royal residence, the Château de Madrid, in the forest in what is now Neuilly and used it for hunting and festivities. It took its name from a similar palace in Madrid, where Francis had been held prisoner for several months. The Chateau was rarely used by later monarchs, fell into ruins in the 18th century, and was demolished after the French Revolution.

The Chateau de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, built in 1526 by Francis I of France.

The Chateau de la Muette was the home of Queen Marguerite de Valois after her marriage was annulled by King Henry IV of France. It was demolished after the French Revolution.

Despite its royal status, the forest remained dangerous for travelers; the scientist and traveler Pierre Belon was murdered by thieves in the Bois de Boulogne in 1564.[6]

During the reigns of Henry II and Henry III, the forest was enclosed within a wall with eight gates. Henry IV planted 15,000 mulberry trees, with the hope of beginning a local silk industry. When Henry annulled his marriage to Marguerite de Valois, she went to live in the Château de la Muette, on the edge of the forest.

In the early 18th century, wealthy and important women often retired to the convent of the Abbey of Longchamp, located where the hippodrome now stands. A famous opera singer of the period, Madmoiselle Le Maure, retired there in 1727 but continued to give recitals inside the Abbey, even during Holy Week. These concerts drew large crowds and irritated the Archibishop of Paris, who closed the Abbey to the public.[7]

Louis XVI and his family used the forest as a hunting ground and pleasure garden. In 1777, the Comte d’Artois, Louis XVI‘s brother, built a charming miniature palace, the Château de Bagatelle, in the Bois in just 64 days, on a wager from his sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette. Louis XVI also opened the walled park to the public for the first time.

On 21 November 1783, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes took off from the Chateau de la Muette in a hot air balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers. Previous flights had carried animals or had been tethered to the ground; this was the first manned free flight in history. The balloon rose to a height of 910 meters (3000 feet), was in the air for 25 minutes, and covered nine kilometers.[8]

 

The first free manned flight was launched by the Montgolfier Brothers from the Chateau de la Muette, on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, on November 21, 1783.

 

Following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, 40,000 soldiers of the British and Russian armies camped in the forest. Thousands of trees were cut down to build shelters and for firewood.

From 1815 until the French Second Republic, the Bois was largely empty, an assortment of bleak ruined meadows and tree stumps where the British and Russians had camped and dismal stagnant ponds.[9]

The design of the park

The Bois de Boulogne was the idea of Napoleon III, shortly after he staged a coup d’état and elevated himself from the President of the French Republic to Emperor of the French in 1852. When Napoleon III became Emperor, Paris had only four public parks – the Tuileries Gardens, the Luxembourg Garden, the Palais Royale, and the Jardin des Plantes – all in the center of the city. There were no public parks in the rapidly growing east and west of the city. During his exile in London, he had been particularly impressed by Hyde Park, by its lakes and streams and its popularity with Londoners of all social classes. Therefore, he decided to build two large public parks on the eastern and western edges of the city where both the rich and ordinary people could enjoy themselves.[10]

These parks became an important part of the plan for the reconstruction of Paris drawn up by Napoleon III and his new Prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. The Haussmann plan called for improving the city’s traffic circulation by building new boulevards; improving the city’s health by building a new water distribution system and sewers; and creating green spaces and recreation for Paris’ rapidly growing population. In 1852, Napoleon donated the land for the Bois de Boulogne and for the Bois de Vincennes, which both belonged officially to him. Additional land in the plain of Longchamp, the site of the Chateau de Madrid, the Chateau de Bagatelle, and its gardens were purchased and attached to the proposed park, so it could extend all the way to the Seine. Construction was funded out of the state budget, supplemented by selling building lots along the north end of the Bois, in Neuilly,[11]

Napoleon III was personally involved in planning the new parks. He insisted that the Bois de Boulogne should have a stream and lakes, like Hyde Park in London. “We must have a stream here, as in Hyde Park,” he observed while driving through the Bois, “to give life to this arid promenade”.[12]

The first plan for the Bois de Boulogne was drawn up by the architect Jacques Hittorff, who, under King Louis Philippe, had designed the Place de la Concorde, and the landscape architect Louis-Sulpice Varé, who had designed French landscape gardens at several famous châteaux. Their plan called for long straight alleys in patterns crisscrossing the park, and, as the Emperor had asked, lakes and a long stream similar to the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

Unfortunately, Varé failed to take into account the difference in elevation between the beginning of the stream and the end; if his plan had been followed, the upper part of the stream would have been empty, and the lower portion flooded. When Haussmann saw the partially finished stream, he saw the problem immediately and had the elevations measured. He dismissed the unfortunate Varé and Hittorff, and designed the solution himself; an upper lake and a lower lake, divided by an elevated road, which serves as a dam, and a cascade which allows the water to flow between the lakes. This is the design still seen today.[13]

In 1853, Haussmann hired an experienced engineer from the corps of Bridges and Highways, Jean-Charles Alphand, whom he had worked with in his previous assignment in Bordeaux, and made him the head of a new Service of Promenades and Plantations, in charge of all the parks in Paris. Alphand was charged to make a new plan for the Bois de Boulogne. Alphand’s plan was radically different from the Hittorff-Varé plan. While it still had two long straight boulevards, the Allée Reine Marguerite and the Avenue Longchamp, all the other paths and alleys curved and meandered. The flat Bois de Boulogne was to be turned into an undulating landscape of lakes, hills, islands, groves, lawns, and grassy slopes, not a reproduction of but an idealization of nature. It became the prototype for the other city parks of Paris and then for city parks around the world.[14]

 

Jardin d’Acclimatation en 1868, Henri Corbel

 

The plan of the park from 1879 shows the two straight alleys of the old Bois, and the lakes, winding lanes and paths built by Alphand.

 

L’aquarium; vue intérieure, 1860.

The Jardin zoologique at the Bois de Boulogne included an aquarium that housed both fresh and salt water sea animals. The interior is depicted here.

The Construction of the Park

The building of the park was an enormous engineering project which lasted for five years. The upper and lower lakes were dug, and the earth piled into islands and hills. Rocks were brought from Fontainbleau and combined with cement to make the cascade and an artificial grotto.

The pumps from the Seine could not provide enough water to fill the lakes and irrigate the park, so a new channel was created to bring the water of the Ourcq River, from Monceau to the upper lake in the Blois, but this was not enough. An artesian well 586 meters deep was eventually dug in the plain of Passy which could produce 20,000 cubic meters of water a day. This well went into service in 1861.[15]

The water then had to be distributed around the park to water the lawns and gardens; the traditional system of horse-drawn wagons with large barrels of water would not be enough. A system of 66 kilometers of pipes was laid, with a faucet every 30 or 40 meters, a total of 1600 faucets.

Alphand also had to build a network of roads, paths, and trails to connect the sights of the park. The two long straight alleys from the old park were retained, and his workers built an additional 58 kilometers of roads paved with stones for carriages, 12 kilometers of sandy paths for horses, and 25 kilometers of dirt trails for walkers. As a result of Louis Napoléon’s exile in London and his memories of Hyde Park, all the new roads and paths were curved and meandering.[16]

The planting of the park was the task of the new chief gardener and landscape architect of the Service of Promenades and Plantations, Jean-Pierre Barillet-Deschamps, who had also worked with Haussmann and Alphand in Bordeaux. His gardeners planted 420,000 trees, including hornbeam, beech, linden, cedar, chestnut, and elm, and hardy exotic species, like redwoods. They planted 270 hectares of lawns, with 150 kilograms of seed per hectare, and thousands of flowers. To make the forest more natural, they brought 50 deer to live in and around the Pré-Catelan.

The park was designed to be more than a collection of pictureque landscapes; it was meant as a place for amusement and recreation, with sports fields, bandstands, cafes, shooting galleries, riding stables, boating on the lakes, and other attractions. In 1855, Gabriel Davioud, a graduate of Ecole des Beaux-Arts, was named the chief architect of the new Service of Promenades and Plantations. He was commissioned to design 24 pavilions and chalets, plus cafes, gatehouses, boating docks, and kiosks. He designed the gatehouses where the guardians of the park lived to look like rustic cottages. He had a real Swiss chalet built out of wood in Switzerland and transported to Paris, where it was reassembled on an island in the lake and became a restaurant. He built another restaurant next to the park’s most picturesque feature, the Grand Cascade. He designed artificial grottoes made of rocks and cement, and bridges and balustrades made of cement painted to look like wood. He also designed all the architectural details of the park, from cone-shaped shelters designed to protect horseback riders from the rain to the park benches and direction signs.[17]

At the south end of the park, in the Plain of Longchamp, Davioud restored the ruined windmill which was the surviving vestige of the Abbey of Longchamp, and, working with the Jockey Club of Paris, constructed the grandstands of the Hippodrome of Longchamp, which opened in 1857.

At the northern end of the park, between the Sablons gate and Neuilly, a 20-hectare section of the park was given to the Societé Imperiale zoologique d’Acclimatation, to create a small zoo and botanical garden, with an aviary of rare birds and exotic plants and animals from around the world.

In March 1855, an area in the center of the park, called the Pré-Catelan, was leased to a concessionaire for a garden and amusement park. It was built on the site of a quarry where the gravel and sand for the park’s roads and paths had been dug out. It included a large circular lawn surrounded by trees, grottos, rocks, paths, and flower beds. Davioud designed a buffet, a marionette theater, a photography pavilion, stables, a dairy, and other structures. The most original feature was the Théâtre des fleurs, an open-air theater in a setting of trees and flowers. Later, an ice skating rink and shooting gallery were added. The Pré-Catelan was popular for concerts and dances, but it had continual financial difficulties and eventually went bankrupt. The floral theater remained in business until the beginning of the First World War, in 1914.[18]

The park in the 19th and 20th century

The garden-building team brought together by Haussmann were Alphand, Barrillet-Deschamps and Davioud and went on to build The Bois de Vincennes, Parc Monceau Parc Montsouris, and the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, using the experience and aesthetics they had developed in the Bois de Boulogne. They also rebuilt the Luxembourg gardens and the gardens of the Champs- Elysees, created smaller squares and parks throughout the center of Paris, and planted thousands of trees along the new boulevards that Haussmann had created. In the 17 years of Napoleon III’s reign, they planted no less than 600,000 trees and created a total 1,835 hectares of green space in Paris, more than any other ruler of France before or since.[19]

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), which led to the downfall of Napoleon III and the long siege of Paris, the park suffered some damage from German artillery bombardment, the restaurant of the Grand Cascade was turned into a field hospital, and many of the park’s animals and wild fowl were eaten by the hungry population. In the years following, however, the park quickly recovered.

The Bois de Boulogne became a popular meeting place and promenade route for Parisians of all classes. The alleys were filled with carriages, coaches, and horseback riders, and later with men and women on bicycles, and then with automobiles. Families having picnics filled the woods and lawns, and Parisians rowed boats on the lake, while the upper classes were entertained in the cafes. The restaurant of the Pavillon de la Grand Cascade became a popular spot for Parisian weddings. During the winter, when the lakes were frozen, they were crowded with ice skaters.[20]

The activities of Parisians in the Bois, particularly the long promenades in carriages around the lakes, were often portrayed in French literature and art in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Scenes set in the park appeared in Nana by Émile Zola and in Education Sentimentale by Gustave Flaubert.[21] In the last pages of Du côté de chez Swann in À la recherche du temps perdu (1914), Marcel Proust minutely described a walk around the lakes taken as a child.[22] The life in the park was also the subject of the paintings of many artists, including Eduard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh.

In 1860, Napoleon opened the Jardin d’Acclimatation, a separate concession of 20 hectares at the north end of the park; it included a zoo and a botanical garden, as well as an amusement park. Between 1877 and 1912, it also served as the home of what was called an ethnological garden, a place where groups of the inhabitants of faraway countries were put on display for weeks at a time in reconstructed villages from their homelands. They were mostly Sub-Saharan Africans, North Africans, or South American Indians, and came mostly from the French colonies in Africa and South America, but also included natives of Lapland and Cossacks from Russia. These exhibitions were extremely popular and took place not only in Paris, but also in Germany, England, and at the Chicago Exposition in the United States; but they were also criticized at the time and later as being a kind of “human zoo“. Twenty-two of these exhibits were held in the park in the last quarter of the 19th century. About ten more were held in the 20th century, with the last one taking place in 1931.

Le jardin d’acclimatation en 1860, gravure d’A. Provost.

In 1905, a grand new restaurant in the classical style was built in the Pré-Catelan by architect Guillaume Tronchet. Like the cafe at the Grand Cascade, it became a popular promenade destination for the French upper classes.[23]

At the 1900 Summer Olympics, the land hosted the croquet and tug of war events.[24][25] During the 1924 Summer Olympics, the equestrian events took place in the Auteuil Hippodrome.

The Bois de Boulogne was officially annexed by the city of Paris in 1929 and incorporated into the 16th arrondissement.

Soon after World War II, the park began to come back to life. In 1945, it held its first motor race after the war: the Paris Cup. In 1953, a British group, Les Amis de la France, created the Shakespeare Garden on the site of the old floral theater in the Pré-Catelan.[26]

From 1952 until 1986, the Duke of Windsor, the title granted to King Edward VIII after his abdication, and his wife, Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, lived in the Villa Windsor, a house in the Bois de Boulogne behind the garden of the Bagatelle. The house was (and still is) owned by the City of Paris and was leased to the couple. The Duke died in this house in 1972, and the Duchess died there in 1986. The lease was purchased by Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The house was visited briefly by Diana, Princess of Wales and her companion, Dodi Fayed, on 31 August 1997, the day they died in a traffic accident in the Alma tunnel.

 

 

The Villa Windsor (originally named Chateau Le Bois) is a graceful 19th-century building of 14 rooms surrounded by a large tree-filled garden. It was built around 1860 and once owned by the Renault family but the French government sequestered the property after World War II and Charles de Gaulle occupied the house in the late 1940’s.

References

  1. Dominique Jarrassé, Grammaire des jardins Parisiens, p. 94.
  2. Jarrassé, Dominique, Grammaire des jardins Parisiens, p. 94.
  3. Its name is commemorated in the communes of Rouvray-Catillon and Rouvray-St-Denis.
  4. http://www.paris.fr/loisirs/paris-au-vert/bois-de-boulogne/un-peu-d-histoire/rub_6567_stand_16149_port_14916%7CHistory Archived 7 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine. of the Bois de Boulogne on the site of the City of Paris (in French).
  5. The current Church of Notre Dame des Menus in Boulogne-Billancourt is built on the foundation of Philip’s chapel.
  6. Serge Sauneron, ed. Belon, Le Voyage en Égypte de Pierre Belon du Mans 1547, (Cairo 1970) Introduction.
  7. | “Archived copy”. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-07. The history of the Bois de Boulogne on the site of the City of Paris (in French).
  8. “U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission: Early Balloon Flight in Europe”. Archived from the original on 2 June 2008. Retrieved 4 June 2008.
  9. Patrice de Moncan, Les jardins du Baron Haussmann, pp. 57-58.
  10. Patrice de Moncan, Les Jardins du Baron Haussmann, p. 9.
  11. J. M. Chapman and Brian Chapman, The Life and Times of Baron Haussmann: Paris in the Second Empire (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 1957:89.
  12. Charles Merruau, Souvenirs de l’Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1848-1852 (Paris 1875:37), quoted in David H. Pinkiney, “Napoleon III’s Transformation of Paris: The Origins and Development of the Idea” The Journal of Modern History 27.2 (June 1955:125-134), p. 126.
  13. George-Eugène Haussmann, Les Mémoires, Paris (1891), cited in Patrice de Moncan, p. 24.
  14. Jarrassé, p. 97.
  15. Patrice de Moncan, p. 60.
  16. Patrice de Moncan, p. 60.
  17. Patrice de Moncan, pp. 29-32.
  18. Jarrassé, p. 107 and Patrice de Moncan, pp. 64-65.
  19. Patrice de Moncan, p. 9.
  20. Patrice de Moncan, p. 65-70.
  21. Patrice de Moncan, p. 9.
  22. Jarrassé, p. 100-101.
  23. Jarrassé, p. 107.
  24. Sports-reference.com Summer Olympics Paris 28 June 1900 croquet mixed singles one-ball results. Accessed 14 November 2010.
  25. Sports-reference.com Summer Olympic Paris 16 July 1900 tug-of-war men’s results. Accessed 14 November 2010.
  26. Jarrassé, p. 107.

 

Gare Montparnasse

Paris ‘Gare Montparnasse’ train station has been operating since the middle of the 19th century and its immediate success meant that to cope with increasing passenger numbers they had to add a second station during its first decade of operation. This Paris station is the main terminus for lines serving the west and south west of France, with destinations including Brest, Quimper and St Malo, Tours (Val de Loire), Chatellerault, Poitiers, La Rochelle and Toulouse.

 

If you need to connect to one of the other major Paris train stations you have the following options from Paris Montparnasse.

 

Transport options Paris station (Gare)

 

Metro line 4 dir. Porte de Clignancourt Gare de Nord 
Metro line 4 dir. Porte de Clignancourt Gare de l’Est
Metro line 4 to Odeon dir. Porte de Clignancourt then line 10 to Austerlitz. Gare d’Austerlitz
 Metro line 13 direction Saint-Denis — Universite  Gare St-Lazare
Metro Line 4 dir. Porte de Clignancourt  to ‘Les Halles’ then RER A to Gare de Lyon Gare de Lyon

 

Rue des Lombards

 

 

 

 

History

 

Rue des Lombards takes its name from the Lombard money changers who settled there in the 13th century. It was completely built in 1250. In 1300, it was called “rue de la Buffeterie”.

It is quoted in The Tales of the Streets of Paris, Guillot de Paris, under the name of “rue de la Buffeterie”, “Buffet” meaning, in old French, wine merchant.

Its current name was given to it in 1322, when the Lombards – merchants, bankers and usurers, settled in the neighborhood, including the Tolomei family. Lombards being known for their sense of commerce, this term had become synonymous with usurer :

“God keep me four houses,

From the tavern, Lombard,

From hospital and prison. “

– Gabriel Meurier, Treasure of Sentences , 16th century.

 

From 1612 to 1636, it is named “Rue de la Pourpointerie” and its residents included cutters who made doublets, male clothing.

In 1877 rue de Aiguillerie, located between rue Saint-Denis and rue Sainte-Opportune, is annexed to the street of Lombards.

A ministerial decision of 18 Vendemiaire year VI () signed Letourneux sets the smallest width of this public road to 10 meters. This width is increased to 13 meters, by virtue of a royal ordinance of July 19, 1840.

 

Detail of the plan of Braun and Hogenberg around 1530.
Location of Sainte-Catherine Hospital.

Remarkable buildings and places of memory

 

The Janitor of  No. 8 is on February 13 1831 the probable first death in Paris of the second pandemic of cholera that will kill in 18 months 18 402 people.

At No 10 the Splendid troupe (Christian Clavier, Michel Blanc , Gérard Jugnot, Thierry Lhermitte, Josiane Balasko, Marie-Anne Chazel, Bruno Moynot and Claire Magnin) settled in 1974.

No 12: Door next to the Ymage Nostre Dame.

No. 14: bore as sign The Ymage Nostre Dame, with a medieval cellar and an underground chapel, is steeped in history. It was built in the 13th century by the powerful order of the Knights Templar with the aim of making it a site of financial and commercial exchanges. It also served as a temporary hiding place for Ravaillac before he was arrested for the murder of Henri IV at 13 rue de la Ferronnerie, a street parallel to rue des Lombards. During the Revolution finally the chapel would have served as a gathering place for secret masses of the clergy.

No. 20: the ground floor was from 1970 to 1973 the Paris headquarters of the New Order movement.

At the corner of 33 bis and 20 rue Saint-Denis was Sainte-Catherine Hospital.

No. 39: it is there that died of phthisis, February 12 1831 the famous songwriter and goguettier Emile Debraux.

At No 47, then 57 was established, under the name La Renommée, the confectionery of Nicolas Appert who invented in his workshops in 1795 the process of appertisation.

 

Rue des Lombards near the rue Saint-Martin.

House of the King’s Weight

This house which was located rue des Lombards, still existed in the early eighteenth century. Stallions or models of weights and measures were deposited there. Until the reign of Louis VII, the kings of France were the only owners of this establishment and the privileges attached to it 8 . The property was then sold to various people before being definitively acquired by the chapter of Notre-Dame who kept it until the Revolution. In 1321, the provost of Paris, on the order he received from the Parliament of Paris, had the weights adjusted to the Mint, then located rue de la Vieille-Monnaie. Three stallions were made, one of which was given to the grocers, and the other two, placed at the Mint and the weight of the king. In 1484, this right was conferred on them by new ordinances. They exercised it with regard to all kinds of merchants; the goldsmiths alone came directly from the mint. The grocers were accompanied, in their visits, by a sword-juror appointed by the provost of Paris, on their presentation. Until 1434, the weights used were only masses of stone, shaped and adjusted. Philip V le Long, by his regulation of 1321, had formed the design of establishing in France one and the same measure. For the expenses of this reform, he proposed a subsidy; the tax could not rise, and the ordinance fell into oblivion. Louis XI later had the same thought; the nobility and the clergy opposed this improvement. By a decree of August 1, 1793, the Convention ordered this uniformity, and by its decree of 18 Germinal Year III (April 7, 1795) fixed the time when it would become obligatory. It is to the learned Prieur of Côte-d’Or that the adoption of the unification of the metric system and the use of the decimal calculus is due.

 

 References

  1. Jean de La Tynna, topographical, etymological and historical dictionary of the streets of Paris , 1817.
  2. A and b Félix and Louis Lazare, administrative and historical dictionary of the streets of Paris and its monuments.
  3. Felix and Louis Lazare, administrative and historical dictionary of the streets of Paris and its monuments , edition of 1844, p. 6 [ read online [archive] ].
  4. Michelle Zancarini-Fournel , The Struggles and Dreams: a popular history of France from 1685 to the present day , Paris, Editions La Découverte , , 995 p. ( ISBN 9782355220883) , Chapter 7 (“Conquering a New World? (1831-1848)”), p. 251.
  5. Philippe Marquis, “The excavation of 12, 14, rue des Lombards in Paris ( IVth arr.)”, Cahiers de la Rotonde , Paris-Rotonde de la Villette, No. 21, 1999, p. 1-119 ( ISBN 2-85738-009-7).
  6. [archive] Albert Cim, “A forgotten: the singer Émile Debraux, king of the goog (1796-1831)”, The Minstrel , p. 284 , September 4, 1909. This weekly published from July 3 to October 9, 1909 a biography of Emile Debraux in 13 episodes [archive], all available on Gallica.
  7. Jean-Paul Barbier, Nicolas Appert inventor and humanist , ed. Royer, Paris, 1994 and www.appert-aina.com .
  8. Henri Sauval , History and research of antiquities of the city of Paris.

 Bibliography

 

See also

Ancient Streets by arrondissement

A walk to the Bastille on Mayday via the Marais district

 

Le Palais des Tournelles

The Marais area is situated between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. Spared by the great Haussmannian works in the 19th century, it is above all an area of ​​exceptional architecture and there remain many magnificent manors built during the 17th century, now mainly housing museums. Originally settled on a vast marshy area, (the name Marais means “Marsh”), the district had its heyday in the early 17th century when King Henry IV decided to build a sublime place dedicated to stroll: la Place des Vosges (inaugurated in 1612).

The hôtel des Tournelles is a now-demolished collection of buildings from the 14th century onwards north of place des Vosges. It was named after its many ‘tournelles’ or little towers.[1][2]

It was owned by the kings of France for a long period of time, though they did not often live there. Henry II of France died there in 1559 of wounds he received in a joust. After his death, his widow Catherine de Médici, abandoned the building, by then quite derelict and old-fashioned. It was turned into a gunpowder magazine, then sold to finance the construction of the Tuileries, designed and developed to suit the queen’s Italian style.

Contents

Site and description

The district around the Hôtel des Tournelles in 1550

At the beginning of the 15th century, the district around the hôtel formed a huge rectangle, marked out by the rue Saint-Antoine, rue des Tournelles, rue de Turenne and rue Saint-Gilles, a rectangle broken from within by the park of the royal estate. During the English occupation of Paris (1420-1436), John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, extended the district by purchasing eight and a half acres from the nuns of Sainte-Catherine for 200 livres 16 sous, thus extending the property to the fortified wall of Paris, which was then situated on what is now known as the boulevard Richard Lenoir.

This extension was annulled in 1437 after the English left. The main entrance to the hôtel was at the bottom of a cul-de-sac currently known as Impasse Guéménée (fr). The hôtel was said to be able to accommodate 6,000 people.

Tournelle gate to St. Nicolas des Champs

Like the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the hôtel des Tournelles was a collection of buildings spread over an estate of more than 20 acres (8.1 ha), including twenty chapels, several pleasure grounds, ovens and twelve galleries including the Duke of Bedford’s famous galerie des courges (so-called due to the painted green squash or courges on its walls. Under its tiled roof the Duke’s arms, devices and heraldry were displayed). It also included a maze called ‘Dedalus’, two parks planted with trees, six kitchen gardens and a ploughed field. The council chamber was notable for the magnificence of its decoration. Three other rooms bore the names salle des Écossais (room of the Scots), salle de brique (brick room) and salle pavée (paved room).

One part of the hôtel des Tournelles, named Logis du Roi, had an entrance decorated with the French coat of arms, painted by Jean de Boulogne, known as Jean de Paris. In 1464, Louis XI built a gallery there which connected this house to the Hôtel-Neuf of Madame d’Étampes, across the rue Saint-Antoine. He also built an observatory for his doctor, Jacques Coitier. Menageries based on those at the hôtel Saint-Paul were later added to house some of the animals previously held at the hôtel Saint-Paul. New specimens were imported from Africa, such as lions, giving the enclosures the name of hôtel des lions du Roi.

No traces remain of the hôtel besides a copy of one of its gates, which forms the south gate of the église Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, and some cellars buried below buildings in the district.

History

Charles VI

At the beginning of the 14th century, the building that became the Hôtel des Tournelles was merely a house facing the hôtel Saint-Pol. Pierre d’Orgemont, seigneur de Chantilly and chancellor of France and the Dauphiné under Charles VI, or perhaps his eldest son Pierre, rebuilt it in 1388. It was bequeathed to the younger Pierre in 1387. This house may have formerly been the property of Jean d’Orgemont, the presumed father of the elder Pierre.[3][4] On 19 March 1387 Pierre d’Orgemont divided his lands among his ten children, leaving the maison des Tournelles to his eldest son Pierre, bishop of Paris, who was already living there.[5] After his father’s death in 1389, the bishop sold the house on 16 May 1402 for 140,000 gold écus, to the duc de Berry, brother of Charles V. In 1404 the duc de Berry gave it to his nephew Louis, the duc d’Orléans and the younger brother of Charles VI, in exchange for the hôtel de Gixé on rue de Jouy. The duc d’Orléans was assassinated on 23 November 1407 and the hôtel passed to his heirs, becoming the property of Charles VI, who lived there from 1417 onwards. The house took the name Maison royale des Tournelles.

Louis XII

Thanks to the Treaty of Troyes, the English entered Paris on 18 November 1420. After Charles VI‘s death on 22 October 1422 in Paris, the hôtel was seized and became the primary residence of John of Lancaster, the Duke of Bedford, younger brother of Henry V of England and regent for the kingdom of France until his nephew Henry VI came of age. In 1436, after the English left Paris, Charles VII gave the hôtel to his Orléans cousins. When John died in 1467, the property passed to his widow, Marguerite, Duchess of Rohan. In 1486 Marguerite left the buildings to her son Charles of Orléans, father of Francis I of France. It thus became a royal residence once again. In 1563 it was still called the “hôtel des Tournelles et d’Angoulème”. It thus passed to John of Orléans, count of Angoulême, and was for a time called the hôtel d’Angoulême (not to be confused with the later Hôtel d’Angoulême Lamoignon).

Different kings of this era stayed for short or long periods at the hôtel – Louis XI made a few brief stays there:

Fleeing his coronation festivities,[clarification needed] the new king took refuge there on Tuesday 1 September 1461 after dinner[7] but left for Tours by 25 September.

Nor did Louis’ successors Charles VIII of France and Louis XII of France stay there much, though the latter did die there on 1 January 1515. Francis I of France did not live there, preferring the château de Fontainebleau, the Louvre and the castles on the River Loire. The Hôtel des Tournelles was used as a residence by his mother Louise of Savoy then by his mistress Anne de Pisseleu, a tradition repeated by Henry II of France when he made it the residence of Diane de Poitiers. In 1524 the magician Cornélius Agrippa lived there under the name Agrippa de Nettesheim, as doctor and astrologer to Louise de Savoie, to whom he made dead and living people appear.[citation needed]

Henry II on his deathbed at the hôtel des Tournelles

The hôtel saw several lavish and unusual festivals, such as the “danse macabre” on 23 August 1451 before Charles, Duke of Orléans. Henry II celebrated his coronation there in 1547 and then the signing of the Treaties of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. The last festival held there was also in 1559, to mark the double marriage of Élisabeth de France to Philip II of Spain and of the king’s sister Marguerite de France to the duke of Savoy. On this occasion, a tournament was organised on 29 June on rue Saint-Antoine, the widest street in Paris at the time and thus known as the La Grant rue St Anthoine, with the same dimensions as in the present day. During a joust in front of the hôtel de Sully (level with what is now number 62), Henry II was seriously wounded by an accidental lance thrust by Gabriel de Lorges, count of Montgomery, captain of the king’s Scottish guard. Moved to the hôtel des Tournelles, the king died there on 10 July 1559 in terrible agony, despite attempts to save him by both the famous surgeon Ambroise Paré and the surgeon to the king of Spain, Andreas Vesalius.

Catherine de Médici, an Italian princess who had grown up in Roman palaces, disliked the Hôtel des Tournelles’s medieval appearance and took Henry’s death as a pretext to sell it off. Gaining total power as regent to her young sons, the heirs of Henry, she turned the property into an arsenal, then had it closed and demolished. On 28 January 1563, in the name of her son Charles IX of France, she issued letters patent ordering the demolition.[8] This took place in stages and financed her major works on the more modern royal residences in Paris, particularly on the Madrid and the Tuileries. Some of the materials from the old hôtel were reused in the construction of the palace. The stables were reused to create the important Marché aux chevaux, horse market, where two thousand horses were sold every Saturday.

Certain parcels of land from the Hôtel’s estate were sold off, though a large estate remained and was used in military training. In January 1589 the estate was used to exercise the mercenaries charged with defending Paris against Henry IV of France. It also became a traditional site for bloody duels – on 27 April 1578, at 5 am, three favourites of Henry III of France beat three favourites of the duke of Guise in a duel there, with all six men ending up killed or seriously wounded.

Henry IV

In August 1603, Henry IV tried to re-use part of the Hôtel’s buildings to create a silk, gold and silver factory, bringing in 200 Italian artisans for this purpose, but the attempt failed. Finally, on 4 March 1604, he issued an edict instructing his minister Sully to measure out the site. He donated a parcel of 6,000 toises (yards) to his main noblemen, who built pavilions there, on the condition that they stuck to the layout, materials and main dimensions laid down by the architects Androuet du Cerceau and Claude Chastillon. On 29 March 1605 Henry wrote to Sully:

Thus the place Royale, later known as the place des Vosges, was born.

References

  1. J-A Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, Gabriel Roux, Paris, 1853, p. 189
  2. Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1851, p.96
  3. Le journal des Sçavans, 1913, pp. 186–188
  4. Léon Mirot (1914). “Les d’Orgemont”. Journal des savants (in French). Berger Élie. pp. 186–188 – via Persée.
  5. “Partage des biens de Pierre d’Orgemont” [Sharing of the assets of Pierre d’Orgemont]. Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de Paris (in French): 130–135. 1887.
  6. H. Champion, Le journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, 1881, p. 360
  7. Paul Murray Kendall, Louis XI, Arthème Fayard, 1974, p. 110
  8. Archives du royaume, section domaniale, série 9, N°1234
  9. Mon amy, ceste-cy sera pour vous prier de vous souvenir de ce dont nous parlasmes dernièrement ensemble, de cette place que je veux que l’on fasse devant le logis qui se fait au marché aux chevaux pour les manufactures, afin que si vous n’y avez esté vous alliez pour la faire marquer: car baillant le reste des autres places a cens et rente pour bastir, c’est sans doute qu’elles le seront incontinent et je vous prie de m’en donner les nouvelles.

Bibliography

  • Jacques Hillairet, Connaissance du vieux Paris, Editions Princesse, 1956, p. 28
  • F. Lazare, Dictionnaire administratif et historique des rues de Paris et de ses monuments, F. Lazare, 1844/1849, pp. 600–602
  • J-A Dulaure, Histoire de Paris, Gabriel Roux, 1853, p. 189
  • Gilette Ziegler, Histoire secrète de Paris, Stock, 1967, p. 69
  • Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1851, pp. 95–96
  • Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1907, pp. 332–334
  • G. Kugelman, Les rues de Paris, Louis Lurine, 1851
  • Giorgo Perrini, Paris, deux mille ans pour un joyau, Jean de Bonnot, 1992
  • A walk to the Bastille via the Marais district begins from behind the Pompidou Centre.
  • Marais district traders
  • Marais district boulangerie
  • Famous falafel queues
  • One of several Jewish Memorials in the Marais
  • One of several Jewish Memorials in the Marais
  • Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (BHVP)
  • The famous Amorino icecreameries
  • Place des Vosges, the oldest planned town square in Paris
  • Place des Vosges, the oldest planned town square in Paris
  • Place des Vosges, Statue - Louis XIII
  • Place des Vosges
  • Approaching the Bastille on Mayday 2018 - year of the 50th anniversary of the famous student strikes Paris 1968.
  • Approaching the Bastille on Mayday 2018 - year of the 50th anniversary of the famous student strikes Paris 1968.
  • The former church of the Convent de la Visitation Sainte-Marie, now the Temple du Marais (1632–34) by François Mansart.
  • The July Column in the Place de la Bastille (1831–40) by Joseph-Louis Duc.
  • Bastille on Mayday 2018 - year of the 50th anniversary of the famous student strikes Paris 1968 - a smoky BBQ.
  • Paris real estate ..
  • A walk back towards the Seine.
  • A walk back towards the Seine.
  • Remnants of the original Bastille, stormed on the 14th July 1789 marking the commencement of the 1789 revolution.
  • La Seine.
  • Houses at 13-15 rue Francois-Miron, 4th arrondissement (16th-17th centuries)
  • Houses at 13-15 rue Francois-Miron, 4th arrondissement (16th-17th centuries)
  • The Hôtel de Ville de Paris has been the seat of the Paris City Council since 1357.
  • The current building, with a neo-renaissance style, was built by architects Théodore Ballu and Edouard Deperthes on the site of the former Hôtel de Ville.
  • The current building is on the site of the former Hôtel de Ville which burnt down during the Paris Commune in 1871.
  • Mayday march moves through the 4th arrondissement from the Bastille.
  • Tour Saint-Jacques is all that remains of the former 16th-century Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie ("Saint James of the butchery"), which was demolished in 1797, during the French Revolution, leaving only the tower.[2] What remains of the destroyed church of St. Jacques La Boucherie is now considered a national historic landmark.
  • The original was demolished in 1797, during the French Revolution, leaving only the tower.
  • What remains of the destroyed church of St. Jacques La Boucherie is now considered a national historic landmark.

 

 

 

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7ème Arrondissement de Paris

History

Construction of Hôtel de Salm, 1787.
Paris, Musée Carnavalet.
The Hôtel de Salm was built from 1782 to 1787 by the architect Pierre Rousseau on behalf of the German Prince Frederick of Salm-Kyrburg. This building combines majesty and charm: a courtyard surrounded by a portico with columns opening with a triumphal arch on the rue de Lille, and a villa Campanian embellished with a garden along the Seine. While the Revolution took the Prince of Salm-Kyrburg to the scaffold, the Hotel was acquired in 1804 by the Earl of Lacepède to install the seat of the Legion of Honor created two years earlier by Napoleon Bonaparte. It is devastated by a fire on May 23, 1871, at the same time as the Tuileries and the Town Hall. Determined, general Vinoy then grand chancellor launches a subscription to the army legionnaires and medalists to restore the building.
In 1925, the Museum of the Legion of Honor and Orders of Chivalry moved to the site of the stables of the palace. The Salm Hotel is classified today as historical monuments.

Exposition Universelle in 1889, the entrance arch is known as the Eiffel Tower

During the 17th century, French high nobility started to move from the central Marais, the then-aristocratic district of Paris where nobles used to build their urban mansions (see Hotel de Soubise), to the clearer, less populated and less polluted Faubourg Saint-Germain.

The district became so fashionable within the French aristocracy that the phrase le Faubourg has been used to describe French nobility ever since. The oldest and most prestigious families of the French nobility built outstanding residences in the area, such as the Hôtel Matignon, the Hôtel de Salm, and the Hôtel Biron.

After the Revolution many of these mansions, offering magnificent inner spaces, many receptions rooms and exquisite decoration, were confiscated and turned into national institutions. The French expression “les ors de la Republique” (literally “the golds of the Republic”), referring to the luxurious environment of the national palaces (outstanding official residences and priceless works of art), comes from that time.

During the Restauration, the Faubourg recovered its past glory as the most exclusive high nobility district of Paris and was the political heart of the country, home to the Ultra Party. After the Fall of Charles X, the district lost most of its political influence but remained the center of the French upper class‘ social life.

During the 19th century, the arrondissement hosted no less than five Universal Exhibitions (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, 1900) that have immensely impacted its cityscape. The Eiffel Tower and the Orsay building have been built for these Exhibitions (respectively in 1889 and 1900).

 

 

Carnavalet Museum

The Carnavalet Museum (French: Musée Carnavalet) in Paris is dedicated to the history of the city. The museum occupies two neighboring mansions: the Hôtel Carnavalet and the former Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. On the advice of Baron Haussmann, the civil servant who transformed Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, the Hôtel Carnavalet was purchased by the Municipal Council of Paris in 1866; it was opened to the public in 1880. By the latter part of the 20th century, the museum was full to capacity. The Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was annexed to the Carnavalet and opened to the public in 1989.

Carnavalet Museum is one of the 14 City of Paris’ Museums that have been incorporated since January 1, 2013 in the public institution Paris Musées. It’s closed for renovation till the end of 2019.

 

Collections of the Carnavalet Museum

In the courtyard, a magnificent sculpture of Louis XIV, the Sun King, greets the visitor. Inside the museum, the exhibits show the transformation of the village of Lutèce, which was inhabited by the Parisii tribes, to the grand city of today with a population of 2,201,578.

The Carnavalet houses the following: about 2,600 paintings, 20,000 drawings, 300,000 engravings and 150,000 photographs, 2,000 modern sculptures and 800 pieces of furniture, thousands of ceramics, many decorations, models and reliefs, signs, thousands of coins, countless items, many of them souvenirs of famous characters, and thousands of archeological fragments. … The period called Modern Time, which spans from the Renaissance until today, is known essentially by the vast amount of images of the city. … There are many views of the streets and monuments of Paris from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, but there are also many portraits of characters who played a role in the history of the capital and works showing events which took place in Paris, especially the many revolutions which stirred the capital, as well as many scenes of the daily life in all the social classes.

Lutetia

  • Long narrow canoes made from a single tree trunk (pirogues), dating back long before the first written description of the village (known at the time as Lutèce) in A.D. 52 in Julius Caesar’s De bello Gallico
  • A beautiful fourth-century bottle used for perfume, wine, or honey

The Medieval city

 Scale model of the Île de la Cité in the 16th century
  • An ornate chest from the 13th century, which probably came from the royal Abbey of Saint Denis
  • A well-preserved 14th-century sculpture of the head of the Virgin Mary, peaceful and contemplative, despite the tumultuous events that decimated the city at that time: the Hundred Years’ War and the Great Plague of 1348

The Renaissance and Wars of Religion

  • Paintings from the 16th century depicting famous men and women of the time, including Francis I, Catherine de’ Medici, and Henry IV.
  • A painting of the Pont Neuf in about 1660 showing Parisians on horseback or on foot. A vendor is showing his wares to a crowd of interested on-lookers, and a man is walking hunched over with a bundle on his back.
  • Several paintings of Madame de Sévigné, who was considered the most beautiful woman in Paris.

The French Revolution

 La Fête de la Fédération, le 14 juillet 1790, au Champs de Mars, Charles Thévenin (1764–1838)
  • The famous uncompleted painting by Jacques-Louis David, The Tennis Court Oath (1789), portraying a pivotal event in French history when members of the National Assembly swore an emotional oath that they would not disband until they had passed a “solid and equitable Constitution.“ This event is often regarded as the beginning of the French Revolution.
  • Paintings showing the people’s revenge on the Bastille, a dungeon that had become “a symbol of the arbitrariness of royal power.”
  • Paintings or sculptures of the famous actors in the drama of the Revolution, including Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, and the royal family.
  • A painting of death by guillotine at the Place de la Révolution, by Pierre-Antoine Demauchy: the fate that struck King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, the Royalists, the Girondins, the Hébertists, the Dantonists, Robespierre and his followers, and many others.
  • Personal effects belonging to Marie-Antoinette.
  • A paper on which Robespierre had partially written his signature when he was seized by soldiers of the National Convention.

Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century

Le Marché et la Fontaine des Innocents (1822), John James Chalon (1778–1854), Musée Carnavalet
  • Napoleon’s favorite case of toiletries
  • Paintings of early-19th-century Paris
  • A painting depicting one of the most important moments of the July Revolution: The Seizing of the Louvre, 29 July 1830, by Jean-Louis Bézard
  • Marvelous sculptures of Parisians of the time, some realistic portrayals, others caricatures, by Jean-Pierre Dantan
  • The ornate cradle of the imperial prince, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, son of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie
  • Illustrated posters from the Belle Epoque
  • Realistic paintings of late 19th-century Paris.
  • A gold watch-chronometer that belonged to Émile Zola
  • A painting of the construction of the Statue of Liberty, which was shipped to the United States in pieces.
  • Paintings of the Exposition Universelle, including one of the Eiffel Tower, which was specifically built for this event. It was used in the 1970 Walt Disney animated film “Aristocats“.

Paris in the twentieth century

 

Après l’office à l’église de la Sainte-Trinité, (around 1900), Jean Béraud (1849–1935)
  • A reconstruction, with original furniture, of the room where Marcel Proust wrote In search of lost time
  • Photographs of 20th-century Paris by Eugène Atget and Henri Cartier-Bresson
  • A stylized painting of a crowded bistro of the mid-1900s, by the naturalized Japanese artist, Leonard Foujita
  • A photograph in daguerreotype, The Forum of the Halles, taken by two American photographers in 1989 for an exhibit at the Carnavalet celebrating the 150th anniversary of the invention of photography

The present buildings

  • Hôtel de Carnavalet

In 1548, Jacques des Ligneris, President of the Parliament of Paris, ordered the construction of the mansion that came to be known as the Hôtel Carnavalet; construction was completed about 1560. In 1578, the widow of Francois de Kernevenoy, a Breton whose name was rendered in French as Carnavalet, purchased the building. In 1654, the mansion was bought by Claude Boislève, who commissioned the well-known architect, François Mansart, to make extensive renovations. Madame de Sévigné, famous for her letter-writing, lived in the Hôtel Carnavalet from 1677 until her death in 1696.

  • Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau

The Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was also built in the middle of the 16th century. It was originally known as the Hôtel d’Orgeval. It was purchased by Michel Le Peletier and passed on eventually to his grandson, Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was a representative of the nobility in the Estates-General of 1789. In 1793, Le Peletier voted for the execution of Louis XVI, and was murdered, in revenge for his vote, the same day of the execution of the king on January 20, 1793.

  • The heart of the Carnavalet Museum

  • Carnavalet’s central garden

Grand Châtelet

 

 

Illustrative image of the article Grand Châtelet

The Grand Châtelet, seen from rue Saint-Denis , 1800

 

 The Grand Châtelet of Paris was a fortress built by Louis VI on the right bank of the Seine , at the end of the rue Saint-Denis. It was demolished in the early nineteenth century and was replaced by the current Place du Châtelet. It housed the police headquarters, dungeons and the first morgue of the capital.

“The Grand-Châtelet was, after the gibbet of Montfaucon , the most sinister building of Paris, as much by its appearance and its destination as by its neighborhood which made of this district the most fetid place of the capital.“

As early as the 9th century, access to the two bridges that linked the Ile de la Cité to the banks of the Seine, were protected by two castles , first wooden, then stone: The Grand Châtelet, north, to protect access to the Grand Pont (now the Change Bridge ); the Petit Châtelet , to the south, to protect the access to Petit-Pont. In Paris, when the name “Châtelet” is used without further precision, it is always the Grand Châtelet that is involved.

History

 The Grand Châtelet of Paris.

The Grand Châtelet of Paris around 1800.

The Pont au Change painted in 1756 from the Pont Notre-Dame by Raguenet.

 

Middle Ages

 In the fourth century, the city, which was still called Lutetia , was concentrated in the island of the City , protected by Roman fortifications consisting of a wall of 2.50 m thick. It appears that at that time no works protected access to wooden bridges, which can be quickly destroyed or burned in the event of an attack. It was in 877 that Charles the Bald had strengthened the fortifications of Paris to protect the city from the incursions of the Normans who multiplied. The Roman ramparts were restored, the fortified bridges and their batteries tightened to prevent the passage of the boats. He also erected wooden towers forming castles to protect the ends of the bridges.

As a result, when the Norman invaders went up the Seine in November 885, they encountered an impassable fortress . The first ferocious offensives were repulsed with determination by the defenders, it followed a long siege of Paris (885-887) to try to reduce the inhabitants to the famine and bring them to capitulate. In February 886, a great flood of the Seine carried the Petit-Pont , isolating the twelve defenders remained in the tower of what will become the little Châtelet . They fought fiercely to the last and were all slaughtered. Charles the Fat ended up arriving with his troops and bought the departure of the Normans who left to ravage Burgundy.

The wooden towers were replaced by stone constructions around 1130 by Louis VI le Gros . The Grand Chatelet formed a solid, almost square fortress, with a courtyard in the middle and diverted gates, surrounded by deep ditches filled with living water, fed by the Seine . Two towers flanked the two angles towards the suburb. It was intended to protect the northern outlet of the Grand-Pont .

The Counts of Paris lived there until the end of the 12th century, until their replacement by the Provost of Paris. From 1190, the construction of the enclosure of Paris by Philippe-Auguste made this fortress useless to the defense of the city. It established the seat of the jurisdiction of the Provost of Paris in charge of police and criminal justice, including prisons and torture rooms where the “question” applied. The provost was divided into four sections: the “civil park hearing”, the “presidential”, the “council chamber” and the “criminal chamber”. After their meeting in a single body, these various jurisdictions took the name of “Cour du Chatelet”.

Under the reign of Saint Louis , from 1250 to 1257, the Grand Châtelet was repaired and considerably enlarged. On May 29, 1418, during the civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians , thanks to the betrayal of a certain Perrinet Leclerc and the support of artisans and academics, Paris was delivered to Jean de Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, captain a troop of partisans of the Duke of Burgundy. On the 12th of June, 1418, the Burgundian faction, which besieged the great and the small Châtelet, massacred all the Armagnac prisoners who were shut up there; their bodies, thrown from the tops of the towers, were received at the tip of the spears.

By a royal ordinance of January 1318 , the King of France Philip V le Long enjoined the clerk of the Chatelet to ensure “that a candle was maintained during the night at the door, the palace of this court, to thwart companies perpetrators who perpetuated themselves on the square , then the busiest of the capital . “

 

Modern era

By his edict of 1684, Louis XIV gathered at Châtelet all sixteen feudal old justices and six former ecclesiastical justices. The Grand Châtelet was rebuilt. It had been decided that during the reconstruction, the court would sit at the Grand Augustins , but the monks would not give up their convent. It was decided to siege it and seize it by force. There followed several fights and fierce assaults, in which a large number of religious were killed. The victory remained with the party of the court, which settled there provisionally.

After these new reconstructions, only a few obscure and harmless towers remained of the old fortress. In 1756, a marble table containing the words “Tributum Cæsaris” was still visible above the opening of an office under the arcade of the Grand Châtelet. It was there, no doubt, that all the taxes of Gaul were centralized, a custom which seemed to have been perpetuated, since the decree of the council of 1586 mentions the “customary rights of the land to be paid to the Chatelet vineyards. “

 

The massacre of September 1792

Massacre of the prisoners of the Grand Châtelet on September 2nd, 1792.

At the time of the Revolution , the prisoners incarcerated at the Chatelet had the reputation of being great criminals: when the rioters opened the prison doors to release the prisoners on July 13, 1789, they took care not to attack the Chatelet. There were three hundred and five inmates in May 1783 and three hundred and fifty in May 1790. After having tried the first accused of the crime of lese-nation , the Court of Justice Chatelet was abolished by the law passed on August 25, 1790. His duties ceased January 24, 1791, but the prison remained. During the massacres of the prisons, on September 2nd, 1792 , out of the two hundred and sixty-nine prisoners incarcerated at the Chatelet, two hundred and sixteen prisoners were cut down or slaughtered by the rioters.

“Those prisoners hearing the day before that the prisons would soon be emptied, believing to find their freedom in the public confusion, thinking that on the approach of the enemy the royalists could open the door to them, had, on September 1 , make their preparations for departure; several, the package under his arm, were walking in the courtyards. They went out but otherwise. A frightful storm arrives at 7 o’clock in the evening from the Abbey at Chatelet; an indistinct massacre begins with sabers and rifles. Nowhere were they more pitiless. “

All were formidable criminals, but none of them had been involved in aristocratic plots. After the massacre, the bodies were piled up on the banks of the Change bridge to be transported to the quarries of Montrouge , near Paris.

 

The jails

 Damiens judged at the Chatelet.

The Grand Chatelet was one of the principal prisons of Paris. In its eastern part, the cells were divided into three categories: the common rooms upstairs, those called “secret” and the pits of the bottom. During the occupation of Paris by the English, an order of Henry VI of England , dated May 1425, lists its parts or cells. The first ten were the least horrible, they had for names: The Channels, Beauvoir, La Motte, La Salle, Butchers, Beaumont, Grièche, Beauvais, Barbarie and Gloriette . The following were much more hateful, some names are eloquent: The Well, the Forgetting, Entre-deux-huis, the Gourdaine, the Crib . Finally, the last two were particularly atrocious:

  • The pit , also known as Chausse d’hypocras , in which the prisoners were descended by means of a pulley. It looks like it was shaped like an inverted cone. The prisoners were constantly in the water and could not stand or lie down. It usually died after a fortnight of detention.
  • End of ease that was filled with garbage and reptiles. In 1377, Honoré Paulard, a Parisian bourgeois, was brought down there, accused of having poisoned his parents, his sisters and three others to inherit it. He died there in one month.

The height was that these imprisonments were priced. Prisoners were required to pay for the night’s jail during their stay and a supplement for bedding. The tariff varied according to his condition: “count, knight banneret, knight, squire, lombard, jew or other. “

Several famous people were imprisoned at the Châtelet:

 

The morgue

In the fifteenth century, morgue has the meaning of face, mine. The prisoners brought into the lower cells of the Chatelet of Paris were “morgués” by their jailers, that is to say, stared with insistence and probably with arrogance and contempt, in order to be able to identify them in the event of escape or recidivism. By extension, the name “morgue” was assigned to these cells. The deposition of the body of the Chatelet is mentioned for the first time by a sentence of the Provost of Paris of December 23, 1371. Another sentence of the Provost of Paris, September 1 , 1734, associates the lower jail of the Chatelet to the identification of corpses .

Subsequently said cells having been transferred to another part of the Châtelet, the “morgue” was affected, in the eighteenth century, the exhibition of bodies found on public roads or drowned in the Seine . About fifteen bodies were found each night in the seventeenth century. The hospitable girls of St. Catherine were required to wash them and have them buried in the cemetery of the Innocents. An opening in the door allowed them to be recognized “by pinching their noses”. In 1804, the police prefect Dubois moved the morgue Quai du Marché-Neuf .

 

Demolition

Last vestiges of the Grand Châtelet rue de la Saulnerie (1855)

Because of its dilapidated state and the conditions of detention of the prisoners who were detained there, the demolition of the Grand Châtelet had been envisaged by the old regime as early as 1780. The jails having been decommissioned following the massacres of September 2, 1792, the prosecutor of the commune Pierre Louis Manuel demanded its demolition the 9th of September following. However, this did not actually start until 1802, starting with the dungeons.

Other buildings, still occupied by the courts of first instance and appeal of the second district of Paris, were in their turn demolished only between 1808 and 1810 but the street Trop-Va-Qui-Dure was destroyed only in 1813. Some vestiges still remained in 1857, between the quai de la Mégisserie , the Place du Châtelet and rue Pierre-à-Poisson (now rue de la Saulnerie before disappearing). On the site of the Grand Châtelet was built the Place du Châtelet between 1855 and 1858 and the Théâtre du Châtelet inaugurated in 1862.

 

 Demolition of the Grand Châtelet de Paris

3ème Arrondissement de Paris

The 3rd arrondissement of Paris, situated on the right bank of the River Seine, is the smallest in area after the 2nd arrondissement. The arrondissement contains the northern, quieter part of the medieval district of Le Marais (while the 4th arrondissement contains Le Marais’ more lively southern part, notably including the gay district of Paris). The oldest surviving private house of Paris, built in 1407, is to be found in the 3rd arrondissement, along the rue de Montmorency.

The ancient Jewish quarter, the Pletzel (פלעצל, little place in Yiddish) which dates from the 13th century begins in the eastern part of the 3rd arrondissement and extends into the 4th. It is home to the Musée d’art et d’histoire du judaïsme and the Agoudas Hakehilos synagogue designed by the architect Guimard. Although trendy boutiques are now taking up many of the storefronts, there are still landmark stores selling traditional Jewish foods.

A small but slowly expanding Chinatown inhabited by immigrants from Wenzhou centers on the rue au Maire, near the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers housed in the medieval priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs.

Place de Vosges

 

Place des Vosges, Place Royale until 1800, is a square in the Marais, part of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements in Paris. Designed by Louis Mettezeau, she is the “sister” of the Ducale square in Charleville-Mézières. It is the oldest place in Paris, just before Place Dauphine.

It bears this name in honor of the department of the Vosges, the first department to have paid the tax under the French Revolution and the sending of the first national volunteers, from the district of Remiremont, to defend the homeland in danger.

The square has been classified as a historic monument since October 26, 1954.

 

History

Charles VI

At the beginning of the 14th century, the building that became the Hôtel des Tournelles was merely a house facing the hôtel Saint-Pol. Pierre d’Orgemont, seigneur de Chantilly and chancellor of France and the Dauphiné under Charles VI, or perhaps his eldest son Pierre, rebuilt it in 1388. It was bequeathed to the younger Pierre in 1387. This house may have formerly been the property of Jean d’Orgemont, the presumed father of the elder Pierre. On 19 March 1387 Pierre d’Orgemont divided his lands among his ten children, leaving the maison des Tournelles to his eldest son Pierre, bishop of Paris, who was already living there. After his father’s death in 1389, the bishop sold the house on 16 May 1402 for 140,000 gold écus, to the duc de Berry, brother of Charles V. In 1404 the duc de Berry gave it to his nephew Louis, the duc d’Orléans and the younger brother of Charles VI, in exchange for the hôtel de Gixé on rue de Jouy. The duc d’Orléans was assassinated on 23 November 1407 and the hôtel passed to his heirs, becoming the property of Charles VI, who lived there from 1417 onwards. The house took the name Maison royale des Tournelles.

 

 Louis XII

With the Treaty of Troyes, the English entered Paris on 18 November 1420. After Charles VI‘s death on 22 October 1422 in Paris, the hôtel was seized and became the primary residence of John of Lancaster, the Duke of Bedford, younger brother of Henry V of England and regent for the kingdom of France until his nephew Henry VI came of age. In 1436, after the English left Paris, Charles VII gave the hôtel to his Orléans cousins. When John died in 1467, the property passed to his widow, Marguerite, Duchess of Rohan. In 1486 Marguerite left the buildings to her son Charles of Orléans, father of Francis I of France. It thus became a royal residence once again. In 1563 it was still called the “hôtel des Tournelles et d’Angoulème”. It thus passed to John of Orléans, count of Angoulême, and was for a time called the hôtel d’Angoulême (not to be confused with the later Hôtel d’Angoulême Lamoignon).

Different kings of this era stayed for short or long periods at the hôtel – Louis XI made a few brief stays there:

Item, the following Thursday [1 June 1440], the Delphin [the future Louis XI] came to Paris and was lodged at the ostel [sic] des Tournelles, hard by the porte Sainct-Anthoine, and stayed only one night, not showing himself in Paris, nor his father the king coming either…Fleeing his coronation festivities, the new king took refuge there on Tuesday 1 September 1461 after dinner but left for Tours by 25 September.

Nor did Louis’ successors Charles VIII of France and Louis XII of France stay there much, though the latter did die there on 1 January 1515. Francis I of France did not live there, preferring the château de Fontainebleau, the Louvre and the castles on the River Loire. The Hôtel des Tournelles was used as a residence by his mother Louise of Savoy then by his mistress Anne de Pisseleu, a tradition repeated by Henry II of France when he made it the residence of Diane de Poitiers. In 1524 the magician Cornélius Agrippa lived there under the name Agrippa de Nettesheim, as doctor and astrologer to Louise de Savoie, to whom he made dead and living people appear.

 

Henry II on his deathbed at the hôtel des Tournelles

The hôtel saw several lavish and unusual festivals, such as the “danse macabre” on 23 August 1451 before Charles, Duke of Orléans. Henry II celebrated his coronation there in 1547 and then the signing of the Treaties of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. The last festival held there was also in 1559, to mark the double marriage of Élisabeth de France to Philip II of Spain and of the king’s sister Marguerite de France to the duke of Savoy. On this occasion, a tournament was organised on 29 June on rue Saint-Antoine, the widest street in Paris at the time and thus known as the La Grant rue St Anthoine, with the same dimensions as in the present day. During a joust in front of the hôtel de Sully (level with what is now number 62), Henry II was seriously wounded by an accidental lance thrust by Gabriel de Lorges, count of Montgomery, captain of the king’s Scottish guard. Moved to the hôtel des Tournelles, the king died there on 10 July 1559 in terrible agony, despite attempts to save him by both the famous surgeon Ambroise Paré and the surgeon to the king of Spain, Andreas Vesalius.

Catherine de Médici, an Italian princess who had grown up in Roman palaces, disliked the Hôtel des Tournelles’s medieval appearance and took Henry’s death as a pretext to sell it off. Gaining total power as regent to her young sons, the heirs of Henry, she turned the property into an arsenal, then had it closed and demolished. On 28 January 1563, in the name of her son Charles IX of France, she issued letters patent ordering the demolition. This took place in stages and financed her major works on the more modern royal residences in Paris, particularly on the Madrid and the Tuileries. Some of the materials from the old hôtel were reused in the construction of the palace. The stables were reused to create the important Marché aux chevaux, horse market, where two thousand horses were sold every Saturday.

Certain parcels of land from the Hôtel’s estate were sold off, though a large estate remained and was used in military training. In January 1589 the estate was used to exercise the mercenaries charged with defending Paris against Henry IV of France. It also became a traditional site for bloody duels – on 27 April 1578, at 5 am, three favourites of Henry III of France beat three favourites of the duke of Guise in a duel there, with all six men ending up killed or seriously wounded.

Henry IV

In August 1603, Henry IV tried to re-use part of the Hôtel’s buildings to create a silk, gold and silver factory, bringing in 200 Italian artisans for this purpose, but the attempt failed. Finally, on 4 March 1604, he issued an edict instructing his minister Sully to measure out the site. He donated a parcel of 6,000 toises (yards) to his main noblemen, who built pavilions there, on the condition that they stuck to the layout, materials and main dimensions laid down by the architects Androuet du Cerceau and Claude Chastillon. On 29 March 1605 Henry wrote to Sully:

My friend, I pray you to remember what we talked of together lately, of this place where I wish that I wish to be built before the lodge which serves as a horse market for manufactures, to the end that if you have not marked out there – for renting the rest of the other places to and rent for the rest, it is doubtless that they will be unfaithful and I pray you to give me the news.

Thus the place Royale, later known as the Place des Vosges, was born.

1er Arrondissement de Paris

 

Musée de l’Orangerie

Jardin des Tuileries, Place de la Concorde, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois

 

The 1st arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) of the capital city of France. Situated principally on the right bank of the River Seine, it also includes the west end of the Île de la Cité. The arrondissement is one of the oldest in Paris, the Île de la Cité having been the heart of the city of Lutetia, conquered by the Romans in 52 BC, while some parts on the right bank (including Les Halles) date back to the early Middle Ages. It is the least populated of the city’s arrondissements and one of the smallest by area, a significant part of which is occupied by the Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Gardens. Much of the remainder of the arrondissement is dedicated to business and administration.

 

Quartiers

Each of the 20 Paris arrondissements is divided into four quarters (quartiers). The 1st Arrondissement is comprised of four quartiers as follows:

 

– Quartier Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois

 

From Planet Bpm : The Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois district is the heart of the French capital. It spreads from the western tip of Île de la Cité to the Jardin des Tuileries, the biggest, oldest garden in Paris. Fluctuat nec mergitur. (“She is battered by the waves, but does not sink”) was the motto of the boatmen’s guild which had its headquarters here during the reign of Hugh Capet, and the phrase subsequently became the city’s own motto.

Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois surrounds the Louvre, whose buildings house a significant portion of French history. Originally built around 1190 by Philip II, ‘Augustus’, as a fortress to contain royal treasure before the monarch left to join the Crusades, the Louvre is now devoted entirely to culture, displaying Western art from the Middle Ages to 1848, treasures of Antiquity and, since 2005, Islamic art. The Church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, after which the district is named, adjoins the Louvre and can be visited outside service times. louvre-1209283_640The grounds of the Jardin des Tuileries host three major Paris museums: the Musée de l’Orangerie, devoted to Monet’s Nymphéas and the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collections, the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which exhibits contemporary art and photography, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs with its significant fashion and textiles collection as well as a more recent section devoted to advertising.

Île de la Cité in the eastern part of the district also has some emblematic historical buildings such as the Conciergerie, the first royal residence in the city and later a forbidding prison under the Terror. It is a stone’s throw from Sainte-Chapelle, a masterpiece of the Gothic style with richly hued stained glass windows built by St Louis within the Palais de la Cité, now the Palais de Justice law courts.

 

– Quartier Les Halles

History

Design of Les Halles in 1863, By Victor Baltard.[5]

View of Les Halles from Saint-Eustache in 1870

Paris – Les Halles

The wholesale market

Les Halles was the traditional central market of Paris. In 1183, King Philippe II Auguste enlarged the marketplace in Paris and built a shelter for the merchants, who came from all over to sell their wares. The church of Saint-Eustache was constructed in the 16th century. The circular Halle aux Blés (Corn Exchange), designed by Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières, was built between 1763 and 1769 at the west end of Les Halles. Its circular central court was later covered with a dome, and it was converted into the Bourse de Commerce in 1889.[6] In the 1850s, Victor Baltard designed the famous glass and iron buildings, Les Halles, which would last until the 1970s. Les Halles was known as the “Belly of Paris”, as it was called by Émile Zola in his novel Le Ventre de Paris, which is set in the busy marketplace of the 19th century.

Major conversion

Rue Pierre Lescot outside the Forum des Halles

Unable to compete in the new market economy and in need of massive repairs, the colourful ambience once associated with the bustling area of merchant stalls disappeared in 1971, when Les Halles was dismantled; the wholesale market was relocated to the suburb of Rungis. Two of the glass and cast iron market pavilions were dismantled and re-erected elsewhere; one in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, the other in Yokohama, Japan.[6]

The site was to become the point of convergence of the RER, a network of new express underground lines which was completed in the 1960s. Three lines leading out of the city to the south, east and west were to be extended and connected in a new underground station. For several years, the site of the markets was an enormous open pit, nicknamed “le trou des Halles” (trou = hole), regarded as an eyesore at the foot of the historic church of Saint-Eustache. Construction was completed in 1977 on Châtelet-Les-Halles, Paris’s new urban railway hub. The Forum des Halles, a partially underground multiple story commercial and shopping center, opened at the east end of the site in 1979 and remains there today. A public garden covering four hectares opened in 1986.[6] Many of the surrounding streets were pedestrianized.

Paris Les Halles: an urban transit hub to redevelop

Underground rail system in Châtelet-Les Halles

Gare de Châtelet – Les Halles is Paris’s most used rail station, serving 750,000 travelers on an average weekday. The buildings and their surroundings have been criticized for their design. In 2002 Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced that the City of Paris would begin public consultations regarding the remodeling of the area, calling Les Halles “a soulless, architecturally bombastic concrete jungle”.[7][8]

A design competition for the Forum and gardens was held, with entries from Jean Nouvel, Winy Maas, David Mangin, and Rem Koolhaas. Mangin’s design for the gardens, which proposed replacing the landscaped mounds and paths of the 1980s design with a simplified pattern of east-west pedestrian promenades and a large central lawn, was selected. The plan also includes extending the pedestrianized area further east to include all the streets bordering the gardens. Another competition was held for the redesign of the Forum. Ten teams submitted plans, and the proposal by Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti was selected in 2007. Their design includes a large undulating glass canopy which will cover the redesigned Forum.[8] STIF and RATP began plans for the remodeling of the Châtelet-Les-Halles station in 2007, and the following year Berger and Anziutti were awarded a contract for redesign of the station.

The station redesign includes new entrances on Rue Berger, Rue Rambuteau, and Place Marguerite de Navarre, an expanded RER concourse, and improved pedestrian circulation. Construction began in 2010 on a project which includes the gardens, Forum, and station, and is scheduled to continue through 2016. The clients are the City of Paris, RATP, which operates the Paris Metro, and La Société Civile du Forum des Halles de Paris, which operates the Forum.[6]

In film

Part of the actual demolition of the site is featured in the 1974 film Touche pas à la femme blanche (Don’t Touch the White Woman!), which iconoclastically restages General Custer‘s ‘last stand’ in a distinctly French context in and around the area.

In 1977, Roberto Rossellini made a 54-minute documentary film that testified to the public’s response to the demolition of Les Halles and the construction of Centre Georges Pompidou. “The result was a sceptical vision rather than a pure celebration.”[9]

The open-air market and Baltard’s pavilions were digitally reconstructed for the 2004 film Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement), which was set after the First World War.

 

– Quartier Palais-Royal (Royal Palace District)

image illustrating Paris

Formed for the first time at the time of the French Revolution , the district of Palais-Royal was formed of four districts :

In 1790 this district takes the revolutionary name of section of the Mountain .

By prefectural decree of , the section of the Mountain, now section of the Butte-des-Moulins , which was located in the former 2nd arrondissement of Paris takes the name of district of the Palais Royal .
Its limits are then:

Starting from Place Vendôme and following the streets of Neuve-des-Petits-Champs , Neuve-des-Bons-Enfants and Saint-Honoré to Place Vendôme.

The law of June 16, 1859 assigns this administrative district to the 1st arrondissement , with the following limits:

A line starting from the rue de Rivoli, and following the axis of the streets of Dauphin and Neuve-Saint-Roch, Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, the Place des Victoires, the streets of Croix-des-Petits-Champs, Marengo, and Rivoli to the point of departure.

Situation and limits

The administrative districts of the 1st arrondissement.

The district of the Palais-Royal is formed of a rectangle, limited to the West by the street Saint-Roch, to the East by the streets of Marengo and Croix-des-Petits-Champs, to the North by the street of Little Champs, and to the South by the Rue de Rivoli.

In the heart of the 1st district, the district is between the neighborhoods of Place-Vendôme in the West, Les Halles in the East, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois in the South, Vivienne, in the 2nd district, in the North.

The two main North-South axes are Rue de Richelieu in the west of the Jardin du Palais Royal and Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs in the East. The garden being crossed by no way, besides the lanes that limit it, only rue Saint-Honoré crosses the neighborhood from side to side in the east-west direction. The Haussmannian breakthrough that is the Avenue de l’Opera cuts the grid drawn in the seventeenth century oblique. The rue Coquillière, which connects the district Les Halles was pierced in the twelfth century at the time of the construction of the enclosure of Philippe Auguste; it is the oldest way of the district.

 

Main buildings

The district is organized around the eponymous Royal Palace and its garden , open to the public.

Administration

Private Hotels

Religious life

Tourism

Theaters

Library

Cafes, restaurants, cabarets, bars

Closed house (closed)

Covered passageways

Along the Garden of the Palais-Royal

Clockwise:

Access to the Palais Royal Garden

Clockwise:

Second crown around the Jardin du Palais-Royal

Clockwise:

Fountains

Public art

In the subway :

Famous businesses

 

– Quartier Place Vendôme.

The section of the Place Vendôme was created in 1790, administrative district which became in 1792 the section of the Spades then in 1795 the area of ​​the Place-Vendôme, located then in the 1st district of Paris whose limits started from the place Vendôme and following on the left, the streets of Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Louis-le-Grand, Chaussée-d’Antin, Saint-Lazare, Arcade, Madeleine, Faubourg-Saint-Honoré and Saint-Honoré. ‘in the Place Vendôme 1 .

A new administrative district is created by the imperial decree of November 1 , 1859, whose annexed map defines the district as: “[Quartier] Place Vendome [sic] . A line starting from the rue de Rivoli and following the axis of the streets of [sic] Saint-Florentin, Richepance and Duphot. New-Capucines streets, Neuve-des-Petits-Champs. Neuve-Saint-Roch, of the Dauphin. And from Rivoli to the point of departure 2 .“

 

 

François Mansart

 

François Mansart,
detail of a double portrait of Mansart and Claude Perrault,

 

François Mansart (23 January 1598 – 23 September 1666) was a French architect credited with introducing classicism into Baroque architecture of France. The Encyclopædia Britannica cites him as the most accomplished of 17th-century French architects whose works “are renowned for their high degree of refinement, subtlety, and elegance”.

Mansart, as he is generally known, made extensive use of a four-sided, double slope gambrel roof punctuated with windows on the steeper lower slope, creating additional habitable space in the garrets that ultimately became named after him—the mansard roof.
  • Buildings : Château de Balleroy, Temple du Marais, Château de Maisons, Church of the Val-de-Grâce
  • Projects: Château de Blois
  • Design : plans to redesign the Louvre and the royal mausoleum at Saint-Denis

    Career

    François Mansart was born to a master carpenter in Paris. He was not trained as an architect; his relatives helped train him in as a stonemason and a sculptor. He is thought to have learned the skills of architect in the studio of Salomon de Brosse, the most popular architect of Henry IV‘s reign.

    Mansart was highly recognized from the 1620s onward for his style and skill as an architect, but he was viewed as a stubborn and difficult perfectionist, tearing down his structures in order to start building them over again. Only the richest could afford to have him work for them, as Mansart’s constructions cost “more money than the Great Turk himself possesses”.

    The only surviving example of his early work is the Château de Balleroy, commissioned by a chancellor to Gaston, Duke of Orléans, and started in 1626. The duke himself was so pleased with the result that he invited Mansart to renovate his Château de Blois (1635). The architect intended to rebuild this former royal residence completely, but his design was stymied and only the north wing was reconstructed to Mansart’s design, cleverly using classical orders. In 1632, Mansart designed the Church of St. Mary of the Angels using the Pantheon as an inspiration.

    Most of Mansart’s buildings were subsequently reconstructed or demolished. The best preserved example of his mature style is the Château de Maisons, which uniquely retains the original interior decoration, including a magnificent staircase. The structure is strictly symmetrical, with much attention given to relief. It is thought to have heralded and inspired the 18th-century Neoclassicism.

    In the 1640s, Mansart worked on the convent and church of the Val-de-Grâce in Paris, a much coveted commission from Anne of Austria. His alleged profligacy led to his being replaced with a more tractable architect, who basically followed Mansart’s design.

    In the 1650s, Mansart was targeted by political enemies of the prime minister Cardinal Mazarin, for whom Mansart frequently worked. In 1651, they published “La Mansarade”, a pamphlet accusing the architect of wild extravagance and machinations.

    After Louis XIV‘s accession to the throne, Mansart lost many of his commissions to other architects. His designs for the remodeling of Louvre and for the royal mausoleum at Saint-Denis were never executed, in the case of the Louvre because he would not submit detailed plans. Some of his plans were subsequently reused by his grandnephew, Jules Hardouin Mansart. Mansart died in Paris in 1666.

The Temple du Marais, sometimes known as the Temple Sainte-Marie, or historically, as the Church of Sainte Marie de la Visitation, is a Protestant church located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, in the district of Le Marais at 17 Rue Saint-Antoine. It was originally built as a Roman Catholic convent by the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, whose sisters were commonly called the Visitandines. The church was closed in the French Revolution and later given to a Protestant congregation which continues its ministry to the present. The closest métro station is Bastille

 

From Wikipedia: