Author Archives: Mayken

Le Val de Grâce

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In 1645, seven-year-old Sun King Louis XIV, and his mother, Anne of Austria, laid the first stone of the Val de Grâce church. The queen mother this fulfilled an oath she had made earlier, to thank God for giving her a son.

Up until the French Revolution, the ^Val de Grâce was the church of the Royal Val de Grâce Abbey. It is located on the grounds of the Val de Grâce hospital. Thanks to the Benedictine nuns providing medical care to injured revolutionaries, the church was spared much of the desecration and vandalism churches such as Notre Dame and Saint Eustace suffered during the French Revolution. Still, it became a military teaching hospital in 1796.

It remained a military hospital until 2016 and treated normal patients as well as the French presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy during their respective mandates.

Today, only the training, research and museum activities remain on site. In 2020, the French president Emmanuel Macron announced it would house three new research institutes, a campus to be completed by 2028.

Location of the Val de Grâce
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The Paris Observatory

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The Paris Observatory was founded in 1667 under Sun King Louis XIV and is the oldest observatory in the world still in operation.

It was to be situated on the Paris Meridian (today at 2°20′ East),  which was for a long time in competition with the Greenwich meridian. On Solstice Day 1667, mathematicians traced the lines on the ground where the observatory was to be built. The Paris meridian bisected the site. Today, it is traced on the ground inside the observatory, and the Avenue de l’Observatoire runs along its axis.

The Paris Meridian can also be traced in the city of Paris by the Arago medallions. 135 originally, some of them have disappeared since 1994. They are named after François Arago, director of the Observatory in the 19th century.

The first directors of the Observatory were four generations of Cassinis: Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Jacques Cassini, César François Cassini de Thury and Jean Dominique Comte de Cassini. They held the office until the French Revolution.

The copula of the observatory houses the Arago telescope. Completed in 1854, it was the biggest of its time, and remained in use for over a hundred years. In the 1880, it conducted photometry measurements of Jupiter’s moons (only four were known at the time, though).

Location of the Paris observatory
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La Sorbonne

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The Sorbonne is a building in the 5th arrondissement in the Latin Quarter. It is named after 13th-century theologist Robert de Sorbon, founder of the Sorbonne College of the Université de Paris, college of theology. The term Sorbonne is also used as metonym for the former Université de Paris (1200-1793 and 1896-1971).

The Baroque façade belongs to the Saint Ursula chapel, completed in 1642. Following the law of the separation between Church and State, it was deconsecrated and is now used for receptions and exhibitions.
It was at the Sorbonne that Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

Today, the Sorbonne is the seat of the Paris Board of Education. It also houses part of the activities of the universities Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and Sorbonne Université. The Sorbonne University Library serves all these universities and the Université de Paris.

Location of the Sorbonne
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The Panthéon – for great men and women

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The Pantheon is located on the Sainte Geneviève mountain in the heart of the Latin Quarter. Built in the 18th century, it was originally meant to accommodate relics of Sainte Geneviéve, the patron saint of Paris, but since the French Revolution, it honors distinguished French citizens, as the inscription on the front says:

AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE
To the great men, from a grateful nation

When the remains of a distinguished person are transferred to the Panthéon, they obtain a almost mythical status. Only very few panthéonisés have been directly buried there, such as Victor Hugo.
The “grands hommes” are still in a large majority men, the first woman was the wife of a grand homme whose family only agreed to the transfer if his wife’s remains could accompany his. The first woman to accede to Pantheéon status on her own merits was Marie Curie. Only three more women have followed her since, two Résistantes, and more recently, Simone Veil.

How do you become a grand homme? Only the national assembly can propose new candidates for the Panthéon, the final decision is made by the president.

On November 30, 2002, Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, was transferred to the Panthéon.
Location of the Panthéon
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Le Dôme des Invalides

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The Hôtel des Invalides (remember: not every hôtel is a hotel) is a building complex built on the orders of the Sun King Louis XIV for the invalids of his armies.
Today it is still true to its initial purpose, but in addition to a retirement home for war veterans, it houses the Army Museum, the military models museum Musée des Plans-Reliefs, the Museum of contemporary history, two churches (at the time one was for the soldiers, one for the royal family) as well as the tombs of several French war heroes. And of course, the tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte who died 200 years ago this year in exile.

The Dôme des Invalides can’t be mistaken for another one – it is covered in 12kg of gold that glitters in the sunlight.

The Esplanade des Invalides on an ordinary day and on Bastille Day (July 14)
Location of the Hôtel des Invalides
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Cupolas of Paris

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There are a number of cupolas in the Paris skyline. In this new series, Cupolas of Paris, we will have a look at the most prominent ones and what is hidden below them:

  • The Dôme des Invalides – 7th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17th century
  • The Panthéon – 5th arrondissement – built in the 18th century
  • The Sorbonne – 5th arrondissement – built in the 17th century
  • The Observatory – 14th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17th century
  • The Val de Grâce – 5th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17th century
  • The Institut de France – 6th arrondissement – built under Sun King Louis XIV in the 17th century
1 Invalides – 2 Panthéon – 3 Sorbonne – 4 Observatory – 5 Val de Grâce – 6 Institut de France
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Denfert-Rochereau intersection

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The Denfert-Rochereau intersection in the 14th arrondissement is known by tourists mainly for the entrance to the catacombs and for the departure of the airport buses to Orly airport. There is, however, a whole lot more. Let’s have a look at the intersection.

No fewer than seven streets intersect here. First, the north-south axis:

  • Avenue Denfert Rochereau to the north, it leads to Port Royal.
  • Avenue du Général Leclerc to the south, it leads to Porte d’Orléans (see also La Libération).
  • To the west, rue Froidevaux, which runs alongside Montparnasse cemetery in the direction of Montparnasse.
  • To the east, boulevard Saint Jacques which turns into boulevard Auguste Blanqui and runs towards Place d’Italie, with a partially overground stretch of metro line 6.
  • To the northeast, boulevard Arago, and to the southeast, along the train line, avenue René Coty, leading to the Parc Montsouris.

Now for the intersection itself. At its center thrones the Belfort Lion of Paris (3). It is a one-third size copper replica of the Belfort Lion, both of which were created by Auguste Bartholdi. It looks in the direction of the Statue of Liberty, also created by Bartholdi.
The Belfort Lion in the city of Belfort, in eastern France, is a red sandstone monumental sculpture commemorating the heroic French resistance during the siege of Belfort during the Franco-Prussian war.

A view of the northern side of the intersection

On the east side of the intersection, between Saint Jacques and René Coty, is the Denfert Rochereau station, served by metro lines 4 and 6 and the RER B which leads to both Paris airports, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle in the north and Orly in the south. Outside the station, there’s the Orly airport bus station (4).

Denfert station, currently undergoing works

At the center of the intersection, south of the lion, the lodges of the barrière d’Enfer, an entry point of the General Farmers tax wall house two museums: the Paris catacombs on the east side (2) and the Museum of the liberation of Paris on the west side (1).

Denfert tax lodge with entrance to the Catacombs
Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, tax lodges and Denfert station

The lower part of the Place Denfert was renamed in 2004 to Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy to honor this communist resistant (1908-2002) who led the insurrection of the capital in August 1944 from his command post in the catacombs underneath the intersection.

The Paris Catacombs
Location of the Denfert Rochereau intersection
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209m above Paris

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The Montparnasse office tower is the highest building inside the Paris city limits, and for 40 years it was the highest building in France. The tower was built on the site of the old Montparnasse train station. The new Montparnasse station is just behind it, with long-distance trains going to the entire Atlantic coast up to and including Brittany, and commuter trains to the suburbs and Versailles.

The tower is 209m high, with a rooftop terrace on the 59th floor and a restaurant on the 56th, both open to the public for a magnificent view of Paris. The elevator, fastest in the world at the time of construction, only needs 38 seconds to reach the top.
The other floors are mainly occupied by businesses, with 5,000 people working in the tower on a daily basis.

In recent years, major asbestos removal works have been undertaken, as the tower was built during a period when the danger of asbestos was not recognized.

But what is one lonely skyscraper doing in the 15th arrondissement?

The Montparnasse Tower seen from the Eiffel Tower

The tower was subject to controversy before, during and after its construction (1969-1973). In 1975, the city of Paris decided to ban the construction of buildings higher than 7 floors, effectively cutting short any prospects of creating a skyscraper business district within the city limits. But by then, the construction of skyscrapers in the new business district La Défense on the western outskirts was already well under way.

La Défense business district as seen from the Eiffel Tower
Location of the Montparnasse Tower
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The Paris Statue of Liberty

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The Statue of Liberty was created by the French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, with the metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel. It was a gift of the French people to the United States of America and was inaugurated on October 28, 1886.

Bartholdi first created a reduced-size model in plaster which you can now find a the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris. In the courtyard of the museum, there is a bronze made from this plaster made by the museum.

Bronze at the Musée des Arts et Métiers

The first bronze model made from the plaster was given by Bartholdi to the Musée du Luxembourg in 1900. The statue was set up in the Luxemburg Gardens but in 2012, it was transferred to the Musée d’Orsay and replaced in the park by a copy.

The Statue of Liberty replica in the Luxemburg Gardens

In 1885, another bronze copy was made and given to France by the Committee of Americans in Paris at the centennial of the Revolution. It was set onto the Île aux Cygnes (an artificial island in the Seine that was created to support, among others, the Pont de Grenelle bridge) at the height of the Pont de Grenelle, near the place where Bartholdi’s workshop was.

The Statue of Liberty on the tip of Cygnes Island as seen from the Eiffel Tower

It was inaugurated by President Carnot on July 4, 1889, three years after the original statue in New York, and in the presence of its creator. The statue looked eastwards so that the president didn’t have to inaugurate it from a boat and to inaugurate a statue that turns its back on the Elysée (the presidential palace) despite Bartholdi having asked that it look towards New York. The statue was finally turned to look towards its big sister for the 1937 World Fair.

Since 1989, there is also a replica of the flame in its original size. It is located on the Place de l’Alma, a gift from the United States to the City of Paris. It is best known nowadays as the remembrance site from Princess Diana who died in 1997 ins car crash in the Tunnel de l’Alma just below the monument.

Location of the Statue of Liberty
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Modern Paris city limits

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Today, the limits of the city of Paris which is at the same time the département of Paris (n° 75) coincide with the expressway Boulevard Périphérique (“le Périph’” or “BP”), a 35km-long dual carriageway with the particular rule that entrants have priority over those already on the expressway. The speed limit is 70km/h but most of the time traffic jams don’t allow for that speed anyway.
The Périphérique intérieur runs clockwise, the Périphérique extérieur counter-clockwise.

The “Périph” at Porte d’Orléans

The strip between the boulevards des Maréchaux (“les Maréchaux”) and the Périph’ is occupied by social housing, schools, and sports equipment.

Tramway on the Boulevards des Maréchaux

There are three “extensions” to the surface of the city of Paris that lie outside of this limit: the Bois de Boulogne park to the west, the Bois de Vincennes park to the east, and the Paris heliport in the southwest near the Seine river, belonging to the 15th arrondissement.

Current Paris city limits (in red)
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