Bourse and Around

From Paris Hotels Reviews

Existing passage Chouseul onto rue St. Augustin and turning right, you come to the Bourse, the Paris stock exchange, an imposing Neoclassical edifice built under Napoleon in 1808 and enlarged in 1903 with the addition of two side wings. To visit you'll need to book in advance on 01.49.27.55.55. Guided tours (€ 8.50) around the eerily quiet building (most of the action takes place online these days) last about an hour and include a presentation on how Paris-bourse works. Overshadowing the Bourse from the south is the antennae-topped building of AFP, the French news agency. Rue Réaumur, running east from here, used to be the Fleet Street of Paris, but all the newspapers have now moved elsewhere; the last to leave was Le Figaro in 2005.

Just up the road of rue du Croissant and rue Montmartre, the Café du Croissant was the scene of the assassination on July 31, 1914 of Jean Jaurés, the Socialist leader. He was shot by young French nationalist Raul Vilain, in protest at Jaurés pacifism. Even if he had survived it seems unlikely that Jaurés could have held back the slide to war: just three days later Germany declared war on France.