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November in Paris begins with yet another long weekend away from work – le pont de la Toussaint (All Saints Day) – one of many strewn along the French calendar year. As Paris florists bring out their stock of chrysanthemum for the annual commemoration of Parisians now gone, and as other Parisians pack their cars and pile up at the exits of the city for yet another frantic weekend on France’s chock-a-block highways, why not use this most appropriate time of year for a less stressful outing to one of the capital’s cemeteries. This should be completed with the purchase of Georges Brassens’ « La Ballade des Cimetières, » a perfect way to record your outing and do your French homework. Continuer la lecture de « Paris cemeteries…where the saints go marching »

 

Language

The Alliance Française The world’s largest network of French language schools offers courses in written and conversational French, at all levels. 101 blvd Raspail, 6e, tel: 01 42 84 90 00,   info@alliancefr.org   
http://www.alliancefr.org
Continuer la lecture de « Paris education in English »

It was on the southern edge of the arrondissement, in the wretched Faubourg St-Antoine that rumbling discontent was first channeled into working-class consciousness and into organized action against exploitation. When word was spread on April 28, 1789 that Monsieur Réveillon, a painted-paper manufacturer on rue de Montreuil, was planning to reduce his workers’ wages, the Faubourg St-Antoine rose up in a violent insurrection. Monsieur Réveillon had not anticipated such a reaction, for the lowering of wages he had intended was proportionate to the drop in the price of bread fixed by the authorities to ease social tension. His 400 workers had a different idea of fairness and Réveillon, terrified, ran for his life and sought shelter in the neighboring Bastille, the ominous fortress looming west of the faubourg. It took the intervention of troops and a death toll of 30 to put down the revolt, but any wise ruler should have sensed that further trouble was brewing … Continuer la lecture de « Bastille day…The story behind the celebration »

Monmartre fetes its wine the first week of October. Photo: Maiko Miyazaki

Until recently, much of Paris was a collection of villages, fragments of which can still be detected by the sharp observer. Needless to say, their wine-loving inhabitants covered a substantial portion of their territory with vineyards…to everyone's joy.

Montmartre

According to legend, the area around Montmartre was in all likelihood the home of the most expert connoisseur of them all, the very god of wine, Dionysus. Since the dawn of time, the 18th arrondissement has been a place of pilgrimage. Hilltops and summits had always aroused the imaginations of people, who believed them to be the abode of divinities. The ancient Celts are believed to have attributed mystical powers to the hill of Montmartre and to have erected ritual megaliths on the sacred hill, under the guidance of the Druids.

This was also a place of worship for the Romans, who built temples here for the gods Mars, Mercury and perhaps Jupiter. But above all, it was the martyrdom of a Christian, Saint Denis, that put Montmartre on the map as a sacred place of pilgrimage (martyrium was a cemetery for persecuted Christians, hence Montmartre and rue des Martyrs).

Montmartre's artists' community in the '30s remembered the gods and the wine. Off to the left of rue Norvins is the rue des Saules, named after the willow trees that once grew on this watery spot. On the right is Montmartre's vineyard, a neat, bright-green patch cheerfully tilted downhill towards rue St-Vincent, but against all logic, exposed to the north! This is because it was planted in 1934 by Montmartre's merry yet incompetent intelligentsia to revive old traditions.

Their knowledge of wine growing was limited indeed, and unaware that grapes need four years before they can be pressed for wine, they went on to organize the first grape-picking ceremony the following year. […] The President of the Republic, Albert Lebrun, and the Minister of Agriculture, Henri Quenille, who were offered the first two bunches of grapes. The grape-picking ceremony has been repeated every October since, except during World War II. The wine is pressed in the cellar of the mairie and sold at auction in April. The labels of the bottles are painted by local artists and the money raised is used for charity, a tradition initiated by the artist Poulbot for the children of the hill immortalized in his paintings.

The Golden Drop

Another area in Paris' 18th arrondissement, the village of La Goutte d'Or, became renowned more than any other for the quality of its wine.

In the middle of this North African enclave, behind an iron gate at no. 42, is la Villa Poissonière, an incongruous countrified alleyway decked with the same romantic street lamps as those that decorate la Butte Montmartre. It seems to have been placed here by mistake. On either side stand charming old houses, some attractively embellished by ceramics, each with its exquisite, pocket-size garden filled with the twittering of birds.

The site is believed to have been the property of a wine-grower when this was open countryside, ideally situated on a sunny slope rolling gently to the south. Indeed, in the Middle Ages, the wine of La Goutte d'Or had attained such renown that during a European contest at the time of Saint Louis it shared third prize with the wines of Alicante and Laconia. The first prize went to Cyprus, the "Pope" of wines, and the second prize went to Malaga, the "Cardinal" of wines. The wine of La Goutte d'Or was crowned the "King" of wines, which also tells us something about the position of the royal authorities in the hierarchy of medieval Europe and their struggle to gain independence from Rome. It was customary at the time for the city of Paris to present the King with wine from La Goutte d'Or on his birthday.

Clos des Morillons

The vineyard of the Clos des Morillons in the Parc Georges Brassens in the 15th arrondissement is not quite so famous, but, here too, vendanges take place in September. Some 600-700 kilos of grapes are picked each year, accompanied by folk dancing and music as the harvest is loaded onto a brightly decked cart. The following summer, several hundreds of bottles of Clos des Morillons Pinot Noir – a fine vintage, according to connoisseurs – are sold  at 38, rue des Morillons. The proceeds go to charity.

The vineyard, with its 700 vines, was planted only in 1985, when the park was laid out. It was meant to rekindle old traditions, for before the Revolution, the vineyards of these sunny, southern slopes were the pride of the village of Vaugirard. Mention of its export to England dates back to 1453. An even earlier document, now kept at the National Archives, goes back to July 1230. This is a sales deed written on parchment, confirming that Milon Bergen and his wife Agnès sold one acre of vineyard to Etienne Poirier for the sum of 15F minted in Paris, paid in cash.

In 1717 as many as 27 of the 95 houses of Vaugirard were taverns, which meant they served wine. Parisians would come here on Sundays and holidays, especially after 1786, when the oppressive toll walls were built around Paris (in this arrondissement, on the site of the Vaugirard, Pasteur, Garibaldi and Grenelle boulevards). Beyond the walls, wine escaped taxation and entertainment was cheap. Louis-Sébastien Mercier recorded that "one drinks wine, one eats strawberries and peas. One dances to the sound of fiddles, musettes, and oboes." However, the prosperity did not last long; the profit-seeking wine growers of Vaugirard replaced their vines with a new stock that yielded much more wine, but of poorer quality. The demanding consumers would have none of it and by 1810 there were no vineyards left in Vaugirard.

Working-class Paris had to contend with cheap sour wine, known as "guinguet," that they drank on weekends in open-air taverns that were situated just outside the city toll gates and therefore sold their wine untaxed. The taverns came to be known as "guingettes." Today the Métro line Charles de Gaulle/Étoile-Nation follows the exact line of the toll walls of Paris, which were demolished by Haussmann in 1860. On much of the route the trains run on elevated rail tracks, which enables riders to visualize where the city boundaries lay until quite recently.

Lower-class Paris could not afford to be fussy about the quality of the wine it absorbed, but it surely absorbed a lot. On the eve of the French Revolution, there were 7,000 establishments in the capital selling cheap wine (five times the number of bakeries!) and Parisians drank a yearly average of 200 pints each. Under such circumstances, the savage brutality of the mob during the chaotic days of the Revolution is not surprising.

With so much wine flowing about, the banks of the foul river attracted the most wretched riffraff, who weild away the hours in unsavory dives along the river, drowning their misery in cheap alcohol, engaging in brawls and crime. It was among the embryonic working class of Faubourg St-Antoine (now in the 11th and 12th arrondissements) and among the rabble of the future 13th ("more wicked, more inflammable and more disposed to mutiny than could be found anywhere else in Paris," according to Louis-Sébastien Mercier), that the French Revolution recruited its zealous hordes of angry followers. Restif de la Bretonne, a contemporary of Mercier, described how on the eve of July 14 the bandits from the faubourg St-Marcel passed by his house on their way to join those of faubourg St-Antoine: "Tout cela formait une tourbe formidable" ("All this formed a formidable mob"). And it was the "Patriotes" of the faubourg St-Marcel who were the first to arrive at the Palais des Tuileries on August 10, 1792, and demand the abdication of the King.

Rue des Vignoles

Many street names of Paris still commemorate its ancient vineyards, notably, the rue des Vignoles in eastern Paris, in the 20th arrondissement, the backbone of a small enclave of narrow streets and crumbling houses, which have retained the exact layout of the vineyards they have regrettably replaced. Today this stretch bears such poetic names as passage Dieu and impasses Rançon, Souhaits and Satan! This is the area of the one-time wine-growing village of Charonne, whose vineyards Jean-Jacques Rousseau liked to ramble through, as he reported in "Reverie d'un promeneur solitaire."

Rue des Vignes

The villages west of Paris also had vineyards which climbed up the sunny hillside of what is now the privileged 16th arrondissement, as witness rue des Vignes and rue Vineuse. Many of them belonged to the religious order of the Minimes, whose convent was located at the foot of the hill of Chaillot, by the Seine. Higher up on the slope was the women's convent of the Visitation, an order of ladies of quality, founded by Henrietta Maria of France, the daughter of Henry IV and the widow of Charles I of England. A double wall separated the two institutions in order to prevent unnecessary temptations. However, it seems virtuous conduct was not always strictly observed there; in 1800, a 300-meter tunnel was discovered under the section of the toll walls that ran there, through which brandy had been smuggled into the convent. Today a wine museum, located in what was once part of the domain of the Minimes, is worth a visit. Musée du Vin-Caveau des Echansons, noon to 4pm, 5, sq Charles Dickens, rue des Eaux, 16e, Mº Passy, tel: 01.45.25.43.26.

Hills of Auteuil

Vineyards also grew on the sunny hills of Auteuil (the southern part of the 16th arrondissement). Back in the Middle Ages, the wine of Auteuil had gained a reputation that spread beyond the borders of France. A Danish bishop by the name of Roschild thanked the canons of Notre Dame for the excellent quality wine from Auteuil they had sent him as a gift: "Vino optimo Altolil." At the time of Pierre Abélard, students came to Auteuil to drink its wine and ever January 22 – the holy day of Saint Vincent, patron of the vineyards – was celebrated here with much rejoicing. But later the wines of Passy and Chaillot began to compete with it, eventually bringing about its decline.

Fire brigade water

Last but not least, and unknown to most Parisians, is the tiny vineyard on Rue Blanche, in the very congested center of the city, just north of the Gare St-Lazare. It belongs to the "pompiers" of the fire station at no. 28! The vineyard has six vines in all, nurtured by the fire brigade since 1904. The firemen produce an average of 30 bottles of wine a year. On the second Friday of October the picking of grapes is celebrated with great pomp. The names on the bottles may sound promising –  Pinot Noir and Chasselas – but the wine itself is almost undrinkable, although the labels are highly sought after by collectors.

This article is adapted from Tirza Vallois' book, "Around and About Paris – the 13th-20th arrondissements," (Iliad Books). Two other volumes spotlight the 1st-7th and 8th-12th arrondissements.   To order the book: http://www.thirzavallois.com.

Whereas today the 2nd arrondissement holds a central position on the map of  Paris, in olden times it lay on the northern periphery of the city, an intermediary territory  between the capital and the outside world, lying initially outside the city walls and  incorporated by successive stages into the growing city.

which mark its present northern boundary were laid out by Louis XIV in 1676 who, fortified by his recent victories,  replaced Charles V's city walls by a tree-lined promenade,  making Paris an open city for the first time in its history.   Bustling traffic had been going in and out of the capital, since Roman days, by way of rue Saint-Denis, on the eastern edge of the arrondissement.  The road led to the villages of Saint-Denis and Pontoise, and on to Rouen. Saint Geneviève, the  patron of Paris, gave it a further boost in the 5th century by promoting it as a pilgrimage route to the shrine of Saint-Denis, hence its name rue de Monsieur Saint-Denis.

From the 8th century on it became  the royal highway, through which the kings and queens of France entered solemnly "the good city of Paris" on their way to the cathedral of Notre Dame – notably after their coronation at Reims – a tradition maintained for over a thousand years, right up to the coronation of Charles X on 27 September 1827. Such occasions were celebrated by lavish festivities against the backdrop of triumpahnt arches, of rich silks draping the house fronts and of fountains flowing with milk and wine. The royal procesion with its sumptuous canopy, the colourful attire of its participants provided a splendid spectacle which thrilled the crowds. Royal funerals also went past rue Saint-Denis, departing from Notre-Dame and headig north to the burial site of the basilica of Saint-Denis.

Much closer to us, it was also selected for the celebrations of 30 June 1878 of the young Third Republic, as depicted in Monet's painting Rue Saint-Denis, bursting with a riot of tricolours. The bourgeois Republic avoided celebrating Bastille Day so as not to arouse revolutionary feelings only seven years after the civil war of the Commune, and proclaimed a national holiday to coincide with the Universal Exhibition, which was bound to draw large crowds. Being the main thoroughfare of the capital, rue Saint-Denis attracted religious institutions, hostels and inns, where kings, pilgrims and other travellers found hospitalitty, notably in the Hôpital Saint-Jacques for the benefit of pilgrims heading for Compostela, and the Hôpital de la Trinité which offered shelter to latecomers who found the city gates locked after nightfall. Even those travelling to their deaths found solace here on their way to the gallows of Montfaucon (in the 10th arrondissement).

The tumbril carrying them from the prison of the Grand-Châtelet (on the site of today's Théâtre du Châtelet, roughly) would pause to allow them to kiss the wooden cross of the convent of the Filles-Dieu (nos 223-239). The convent's inmates, reformed prostitutes, would welcome them to a share of holy water, three morsels of bread and a glass of wine, and could even save their necks by consenting to marry them. It is said that one prisoner, who was offered rescue by a generous yet hideously ugly 'daughter of God', urged the hangman to proceed with his task and put him out of even worse misery. This may be the origin of the expression passer la corde au cou – "to put someone's head in the noose", or to trap a man into marriage.

Because of its geographical postion, the 2nd arrondissement drew in the most destitute segments of society, particularly between the 15th and 17th centuries, when the Hundred Years' War and the Black Plague had left one sixth of the population homeless and starving. Deserting the desolate coutryside they made their way into the capital and huddled within its walls. They were hardly likely to be disturbed in this tangle of narrow streets and blind alleys, a cesspool reeking with the stench of the open sewer, a perilous no-man's-land a long way from the city, as some street names testify -rue du Temps Perdu ('vanished times', now Saint-Joseph) and rue du Bout du Monde ('world's end', now Léopold Bellan), for example.

The newcomers became the terror of the town, organised into fearsome bands with their own language and laws. By day they spilled out into the streets of Paris, metamorphosed into 'blind' or 'maimed' beggars who preyed upon passers-by. By night they vanished into the neighbourhood's dead-end alleys, where they laid aside their crutches and 'miraculously' recovered their eyesight and missing limbs. Thus these alleys came to be known as 'Cours des Miracles', the most notorious one being situated on rue Neuve-Saint-Sauveur (roughly the site of today's rue du Nil, rue des Forges and rue de Damiette), and ran conveniently along the city walls, the gaps of which provided exists in case of emergency.  

In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo brought worldwide notoriety to the Cour des Miracles of rue Neuve-Saint-Sauveur, "a gutter of vice and beggary, of vagrancy that spills over into the streets of the capital […] immense changing-room of all the actors of this comedy that robbery, prostitution and murder play on the cobbled streets of Paris." Prostitution tended to operate in the south-eastern section of the arrondissement, attracted to the abundant reservoir of clientele provided by Les Halles,  where it left the mark of its trade by way of expressive street names: rue Tire-Boudin ('sausage-jack', now Marie-Stuart), rue Gratte-Cul ('bum-scraper', now Gaston Dussoubs)…

Attempts to do away with prostitution were made once in a while, but these were usually half-hearted and ineffectual and largely depended on the inclinations of the individual monarch. Thus, at the time of Louis XV, who was by no means averse to the pleasures of the flesh, the neighbourhood flourished into a breeding-ground of courtesans for the upper classes. It was in Madame Gourdan's glamorous establishment on rue de la Comtesse d'Artois (now Montorgueil), that the notorious pimp Jean du Barry discovered Jeanne Bécu, Mademoiselle Lange by her trade name, soon to be married off and become the King's mistress as the new Comtesse du Barry, the last of France's royal favourites, to the outrage of the court.

 By then, the 'Cour des Miracles' was no more –  its rabble had  made the streets of Paris so unsafe that in 1667 Louis XIV ordered his police lieutenant Nicolas de La Reynie to clean it up. This was no easy task, for its occupants put up a heroic resistance. Once defeated, many ended up in the galleys of the king's growing fleet; this was one way of tackling the problem of homelessness which afflicted one tenth of the population of Paris, or 40,000 souls. It was also a way of providing breeding mates for the newly acquired territory of Louisiana and help its demographic growth.

 Thirza Valloisis the author of  Around and About Paris, Volume I, II, III published by Iliad Books (UK)  and  Romantic Paris, co-published by Interlink (US) and Arris Books (UK).  To find out more and order Thirza Vallois's books, visit her website: http://www.thirzavallois.com

Discovering the 11th district
In 1976 the painter Dominique Thiolet settled in a new studio at 5 rue de Charonne, ushering in a new era for the 11th arrondissement. The arrival of other artists in the southern section of the arrondissement around the Bastille and the renovation of the area were the first step of an overall process of gentrification of eastern Paris.

By 1985 the association of Le Génie de la Bastille (called after the golden "spirit of liberty" which surmounts the Bastille column), boasted 40 participating studios and over 100 artists. A year later Jean-Pierre Lavigne, a prominent art-dealer on the contemporary Parisian scene, opened his spacious, three-storeyed gallery at 27 rue de Charonne and dazzled the neighbourhood with the first exhibition in Paris of Andy Warhol's silk screens.

Brochures and leaflets adorn their move to the Bastille with a highfaluting ideological motivation, such as a place 'generating freedom and movement', where some 200 artists and the likes have taken up residence by now.

In point of fact, they came here initially because they could not afford to settle in places like Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and with the building of the new Opera well under way, it was reasonable for them to assume that the neighbourhood would soon become desirable. Furthermore, as old trades – metalworks, spinning mills – were dying out, many workshops became vacant and could be purchased at low prices and converted into 'lofts'. It was in the Bastille area that the frenzied vogue for lofts, emulating Manhattan, began in the 1980s.  Kenzo was among the early residents and converted a metal factory into a fabulous Japanese-style residence. 

Architects, computer designers followed suit, making this the up-and-coming area of Paris, drawing the young to its cafés, night clubs and restaurants, as you will notice, for example,  on the corner of the 'place" and rue de la Roquette, and on rue de Lappe come night time.  Most of the rickety houses on rue de Lappe have, miraculously, not as yet been torn down, only renovated, but the accordions and bals-musette have long been silenced. The Balajo at no. 9 is now a fashionable nightclub, quite different from the place visited by Edith Piaf. Le Bouscat, at no. 13, has regrettably disappeared,  as has the one-storeyed house where it stood before being turned into a garage.

A sorry disappearance, for this was the birthplace of the bal-musette, introduced by Antoine Bouscatel in 1905. Before then one danced the cabrette, accompanied by the Auvergnat bagpipe. The despicable accordion brought over by the 'Ritals' (Italians) was absolutely taboo – but not for long. In 1904 Charles Peguri braced himself, walked over to rue de Lappe with his accordion and ended up by persuading Bouscatel that it was not such a bad instrument after all. The marriage between the two cultures was sealed the following year, to be followed in 1913 by the real-life wedding of Charles Peguri to Monsieur Bouscatel's daughter.

At no. 8 stood La Boule Rouge, the haunt of apaches or julots who would swagger in accompanied by their girls, les gonzesses. They had to watch their step, however, for the massive boss of the place would stand no nonsense. He had an imposing walrus moustache and always wore a basque beret and he made short shrift of troublemakers. Today the Cactus Blue, a clinically sleek American establisment stands in its place, shining with stainless-steel trimmings and equipped with a TV set over the bar, offering a more update kind of music, to lyrics in English rather than French. 

 Trendy eating places and cafés  overspill into rue de la Roquette too, a very old rural road which Haussmann managed to intergrate skillfully  into his modern street network, by making it run through the present Place Léon Blum, more or less at right angles with the Boulevard Voltaire, but which he did not lay out. In the 19th century rue de la Roquette became "the sinister way" taken by the hearse and the funeral processions heading for the new cemetery of Père Lachaise in eastern Paris, jolting uphill towards Boulevard Ménilmontant. In Paris Vécu  Léon Daudet described it as "the principal sorrowful way of Paris, the road of funerals." He was speaking from personal experience, having accompanied the body of his father, Alphonse Daudet, along this route in December 1897, "à pas lents, mon chapeau à la main." ("At a slow pace, hat in hand").

The Dreyfus Case had only just begun, which explains why both Emile Zola, later to write the famous article J'accuse, in defence of Dreyfus, and Drumont, author of the rabidly anti-Semitic La France juive, attended the funeral, each holding one of the cordons of the catafalque; Zola, however, was on the left, Drumont on the right. It is unlikely they would have been seen together a while later. Léon Daudet espoused Drumont's theories and became one of the founders of L'Action Française, the fanatically anti-Semitic movement that led logically to the persecution of the Jews during World War II. For the time being, he was absorbed with the death of his Father and with the funeral, writing, "As to the participation and emotion of an immense multitude, no funeral, not even that of Victor Hugo, surpassed the funeral of Alphonse Daudet." (history, however, remember Victor Hugo's funeral as ranking top). In November 1923 he passed along the same morbid route beside the coffin of his son Philippe, who had been involved with the Anarchists and died in mysterious circumstances.

 At that time, two ghastly prisons stood on opposite sides of the street, a little further up the women's  prison, La Petite-Roquette, built in 1836 on the site of the present no. 143, and the men's prison, La Grande-Roquette, erected the following year on the site of no. 168. Every now and then the guillotine would make an ephemeral appearance in front of the men's prison – 41 times between 1840 and 1880. Jules Vallès, one of the heroes of the 1871 civil war of the Commune, gave a spine-chilling description of the last moments of the prisoner: "The big door of the prison rolls on its hinges. This is the terrible moment.  It is at this moment that La Pommeraye, who up until now has been impassive, pale: his eyes are glazed, his legs sag. The scaffold is standing,  twenty steps ahead, on the square."

 Another Contemporary who was present at one of these public executions described the vociferous delight of the "teeming, screaming, drunk, revolting" mob.

 Unlike Alphonse Daudet, all that the wretched guillotined prisoners received by way of homage was the discreet mention on their death certificates, "died on rue de la Roquette, no. 168". Among them were also a couple of women from across the street, the last of whom was executed on the snowy dawn of 6 February 1946. The men's prison was torn down in 1900, but the women's only in the 1970s.  An attractive garden now replaces it, a welcome patch of greenery in a busy neighbourhood, oblivious to the misery of the past. But the massive door that guarded the death cell at La Grande-Roquette can still be seen at the Police Museum  off place Maubert, at no. 4 rue Sainte-Geneviève, in the 5th arrondissement.

 Thirza Valloisis the author of  Around and About Paris, Volume I, II, III published by Iliad Books (UK)  and  Romantic Paris, co-published by Interlink (US) and Arris Books (UK).  To find out more and order Thirza Vallois's books, visit her website:  http://www.thirzavallois.com

Discovering the 5 & 6th district
Romantic myths of Left Bank intelligentsia which date back seven centuries are brutally shattered on today's busy bd St-Michel, the main artery of the Latin Quarter, where the 5th and 6th arrondissements meet.

The venerable Sorbonne, the quarter's historic seat of intellectual life, is still there, but these days the forlorn chime of its chapel bell, which has punctuated the studies of generations of scholars, is drowned out by the din of passing traffic. Indeed most people who stream past the place de la Sorbonne seldom notice its beautiful 17th century chapel with its graceful dome.

The dramatic story of this Paris neighborhood begins with the Roman occupation of Gaul, when the growing population of the Ile de la Cité spilled over on to the Left Bank. Roman villas appeared on the slopes of Mount Leucotitius (now the Montagne Ste-Geneviève), where the air was purer, soon to be followed by more dwellings along the cardo (the north-south axis, now rue St-Jacques) that led to Orléans.  

The Germanic invasions of the mid-third century pushed the local population back to the safety of the Ile de la Cité, not to return to the ravaged Left Bank until a century later. "Outsiders" of a new creed, the early Christians, were arriving from the south.  (A Christian cemetery has been discovered in the area around the junction of rue St-Jacques and bd de Port Royal.) Rome and its far-reaching influence was soon to crumble; in Paris the sweeping waves of the Goths and vandals of the early 5th century proved irresistible, and in 451 Attila the Hun was at the gates of the city with his 700,000 men. Once more, the terrified population was ready to flee the Left Bank, but the legendary Geneviève bolstered up their courage, prophesying that Paris would be spared. She eventually became the patron saint of Paris.  In the 13th century, the Latin Quarter became the center of learning not just of France but of the whole of Western Europe.

 The University was established barely a decade after the completion of the Left Bank section of the city walls; the first official written reference to the Universitas Magistrorum et Scolarium Parisiensium dates from 1221. At the beginning it did not have a permanent home. While its headquarters shifted, the teaching took place in the open air, on Place Maubert, and mainly on rue du Fouarre located near by.

 The teachers stood on wooden trestles, while the students brought along their own fodder to sit on (fouarre in old French), hence the name of the street which soon became synonymous with the University as a whole. Brawls, uproar and political and religious agitation were also daily occurrences in the rue du Fouarre, to such an extent that in 1358 the Regent and future Charles V had the street barred with chains on both sides. 

 Nonetheless, the Latin quarter was first and foremost a prestigious seat of knowledge. In order to attract newcomers, King Philippe-Auguste granted the Left Bank considerable autonomy.  With the presence of three powerful abbeys -Sainte Geneviève, Saint Victor and Saint Germain – Rome was bound to step in and take over.  Thus, the newly founded University, whose teaching then was strictly limited to theology, came under the direct tutelage of the Pope.

The greatest theologians and thinkers came to teach in the Latin Quarter and helped to make it the intellectual center of the world: the German Albert, on place Maubert (the name is possibly a contraction of Maître Albert); his Italian disciple Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the most prominent medieval theologian; the Florentine Brunetto Latini; and the "master" Dante Alighieri….

Little by little, permanent colleges superseded the makeshift locations of earlier days, first providing accommodation and later teaching. One such college was founded in 1253 on the present rue du Sommerand, by Robert, the chaplain and confessor of Saint Louis. Born to a humble family in the village of Sorbon in the Ardennes, he became so great a scholar that the King had him dine at his table. The college became the seat of the faculty of theology and was known as La Sorbonne, after the native village of its founder.  Its expansion was so spectacular that it soon overshadowed the other institutions and many foreigners still mistake it for the entire University of Paris.

Over the centuries the number of chairs created at the nearby Collège de France increased from the initial three to over 40 today, but its principles have remained unchanged; it has always been  independent of the University of Paris and the lectures have always been, and still are, free of charge and open to the public. Since its beginning, its illustrious professors have included the historian Michelet; Champollion who deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs; the mathematician and physicist Ampère; the historian and writer Renan; and the philosopher Bergson.

Like the rest of the Latin Quarter, the Sorbonne suffered from the Hundred Years War and from the wars of religion in the latter half of the 16th century, and as a result, the withered institution had to be revivified. The enterprising Richelieu, a former student at the school and its dean at the time, undertook its renovation, laying the cornerstone of its chapel in 1625. His project, however, was purely architectural and little was done to reform the curriculum, which until the Revolution remained restricted to theology. No wonder its beautiful compound, the work of architect Lemercier and artist Le Brun, was given a rough time by the anti-clerical revolutionaries. Some of its marble was stolen, part of the chapel dome was left to crumble, and weeds invaded the courtyard.

 In the early 19th century, the Sorbonne was used as living quarters by several dozen artists who had formerly lived in the Louvre. During the Restoration a new scheme for the renovation of the Sorbonne was put forth and was carried out step by step throughout the 19th century. The Sorbonne was reconstructed entirely and expanded, to include the faculties of science and of letters, as well as the school of librarians, the Ecole des Chartres, and Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.

 In 1968, a wind of revolt blew across the planet, from the Latin Quarter to Prague to Berkeley, California. There was no premeditated political motivation on the part of students in Paris when, during the month of May, they transformed the Latin Quarter into a battlefield. Rather it was a vague discontent with an amalgamation of capitalism, imperialism (including the Vietnam War, of course), budding consumerism and the rigidity of bourgeois values. "L'imagination au pouvoir" ( "let imagination rule"), one of their favorite slogans, was scribbled on Latin Quarter walls. Barricades were erected on all the main arteries in the area to fend off the forces of the riot police as cobblestones were dug out of ancient streets and hurled at them.

By the end of June of that year, the summer holidays had begun, always a period of hibernation in the Latin Quarter, and by the following autumn, the students' riots had died out. But the State had drawn its "lessons" from them and proceeded to "dismantle" and decentralize the University. The better part of its student population, were exiled and scattered all over Paris, packed into ugly premises, often in seedy neighborhoods. To crown it all, these new rootless compounds were given numbers instead of names – Paris I, Paris II, Paris III…up to XIII, all in the name of modernity.

 The participants in the événements of 1968 grew either into disillusioned bourgeois known as ex-soixante-huitards or into frustrated misfits referred to as soixante-huitards attardés.  Fortunately the excellent lycées Henri IV, Louis le Grand and Saint Louis, are still there, as is the Ecole Normale Supérieure on rue d'Ulm. But the University has suffered beyond repair and in many cases its students have become second-class citizens, superseded by the élite who have been creamed off by the grandes écoles.

The arrondissement, meanwhile, has been "cleaned up" and gentrified like many other parts of Paris. Former President Mitterrand lived on rue de Bièvre off the once seedy Place Maubert. The new resident bourgeoisie lives in discreet seclusion away from the beaten track of bd Saint-Michel, where a junk bazaar has replaced most of the bookshops that went the way of the students. Today the bd St-Michel stands for what the students of the spring of '68 vaguely sensed, rejected – and desperately resisted – the inexorable triumph of the consumer age.

Thirza Valloisis the author of  Around and About Paris, Volume I, II, III published by Iliad Books (UK)  and  Romantic Paris, co-published by Interlink (US) and Arris Books (UK).  To find out more and order Thirza Vallois's books, visit her website:  http://www.thirzavallois.com

Pont des Arts Lovers photo:Bob Bishop

We all have our "favorites" as to where to play out our love stories, and a city like Paris has certainly scores of these. But remember that choosing the right time of day or night, the right season and the right weather can be as important as the "stage" itself, which should never be crowded. It's meant to be just the two of you, and Paris… What a superb threesome you make!

• Western tip of l'Allée des Cygnes (Mº Bir-Hakeim) Best time – early morning. Despite the name, Alley of Swans, this place has never had any swans; these belonged to another island at the time of Louis XIV, further east, which no longer exists. But this secluded little enclave has an undefinable poetry that only real lovers of Paris can appreciate. A flight of steps down the bridge of Bir Hakeim takes you there… Walk among the serene, shady trees to the western tip, where a smaller Statue of Liberty looks west toward her larger sister in America. Opposite is the Pont Mirabeau and its lovely mermaids. A flight of seagulls may circle above your heads, as you recall these lines by Guillaume Apollinaire:

  Passent les jours, passent les semaines Ni temps passé ni les amours reviennent Sous le Pont Mirabeau coule la Seine… Days go by, years go by, Neither time past nor love returns Under the bridge of Mirabeau flows the Seine…

  

  The Seine by Night photo:Bob Bishop

• Western tip of the Ile-de-la-Cité (M° Pont Neuf) At any time of the day. The Vert Galant (the Amorous Youth) was the philandering Henri IV, said to have scattered some 70 offspring throughout his kingdom… Proceed to the steps by his equestrian statue, and skirt past the Vert Galant gardens (square) to the island's tip. Settle under the weeping willows, and enjoy the stunning view of the Institut de France, the Louvre and the Pont des Arts, reputedly the city's most romantic bridge.

• Western tip of the Ile-St-Louis (Mº Pont-Marie) By night… You are surrounded by the amber magic of street lights and their reflection in the water, while the ancient stones of Notre-Dame tell you tales of passion, of les amours d'Héloïse et Abélard, and other Esmeraldas…

• La Cour de Rohan (Mº Odéon) To be entered through rue Jardinet. This is a private place and has a digicode. It may not always be open. Please be discreet as you make your way through its three successive courtyards, which open up magically like Chinese boxes. As you step out into the Cour-du-Commerce-St-André you'll see the back of Le Procope, the city's first café (now a restaurant), going back to 1685, the gathering spot of literati and philosophers.

• Fontaine de Médicis (Luxembourg Gardens, Mº Luxembourg) This Renaissance fountain reminds us that the Palais du Luxembourg, now the seat of the French Senate, was once the home of Marie de Medicis, Henri IV's widow. Ancient romance is carved into the stone, telling the story of the abduction of Leda by the Swan, who is no other than Jupiter in disguise. In more recent times, this was where Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre had their first rendezvous. Before the Revolution, the gardens had two famous walks, l'allée des Philosophes, where the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau would muse, and the allée des Soupirs, the sanctuary of lovers.

• Salon du Palais Royal Shiseido (142 galerie de Valois, Mº Palais-Royal) You climb up one floor and enter a dim, silent sanctuary permeated with fabulous, subtle scents. You've stepped into a dream, where Parisian chic meets Japanese refinement. Marble floor, lilac walls and rosewood paneling combine to beguile you as such bewitching fragrances will. Some are suitable for both men and women, and you can even have your initials engraved on the bottles. While you're about it enjoy the Palais Royal gardens, which are even more romantic at night. This fabulous setting is also home to the Grand Véfour and the enthralling cuisine of Guy Martin, if you can afford to "splurge."

• Musée de la Vie Romantique (16 rue Chaptal, 9e, Mº Blanche/St-Georges, closed Mon & holidays) Nothing seems to have changed since the 1830-1858 era, when this was the home of the portrait painter Ary Scheffer and the stronghold of the Romantics. A tree-lined driveway, a flowery cobbled courtyard, an Italianate house, a profusion of wisteria, rose bushes… You'll also see much of George Sand's memorabilia and recapture her life which had all the ingredients of a tale of romance. Use your imagination to hear the melodies of Liszt and Chopin drifting across the piano keyboard, then head back to the garden where tea is served (only in the summer months).

• L'Allée des Brouillards (Mº Lamarck-Caulaincourt) Best in the morning, or at sunset. The name in itself – the Alley of Mists –conjures up visions of mysterious romance. Hidden in the less frequented parts of Montmartre, it was previously spotted by Auguste Renoir who settled there with Aline and the children in this "paradise of roses and lilac' in 1892. It's the house on the left-hand side at the top of the stairs… At the end of an alley, stands the sleepy Château des Brouillards, steeped in serene greenery, frequented and celebrated in the 19th century by the quintessentially romantic writer, Gérard de Nerval. Make your way to 83 rue Lepic for an inexpensive lunch in the flowery garden of Grazziano. It was one of singer Dalida's favorite haunts and comes with one of Montmartre's two surviving windmills, le Moulin du Radet. Afterwards, wind down rue Lepic and pay homage to Amélie Poulain.

• Hôtel du Nord (102 quai de Jemmapes, Mº Gare de l'Est) For Saturday night… The mythical place that inspired Marcel Carné takes us back to a poorer, shadier Paris, impressed on our memories in black and white, along with the nasal voice of the legendary Arletty: "Atmosphères, atmosphères…". True, the film was actually shot in a studio, but the story of two desperate lovers intent on putting an end to their lives, in the Hôtel du Nord's seedy setting… is as romantic as can be, and so is the Canal St-Martin, with its locks and footbridges. On Saturday night you can have an inexpensive meal here while enjoying French songs from the 1930s, accompanied by an accordion, in a genuinely unpretentious, warm atmosphere.

• The parc des Buttes-Chaumont Unquestionably the city's most romantic park setting. The Buttes-Chaumont have all the ingredients that qualify as "romantic" – cliffs, grotto, lake, rushing waterfalls… and on top of the cliff, a copy of Tivoli's Temple of the Sybille. Intended by the Emperor to become "les Tuileries du peuple," the gardens were laid out in these poor, remote parts, by Napoleon III's architect, Alphand. When you come down the cliff, enjoy an outdoor lunch at Pavillon Puebla, this in a nest of greenery.

Adapted from Thirza Vallois's book Romantic Paris. Thirza Vallois is the author of "Around and About Paris." To order the book: http://www.thirzavallois.com