Place des Vosges and Around
From Paris Hotels Reviews
Place des Vosges and Around
As you approach via the narrow streets from the Bastille or from the north or west, nothing quite prepares you for the size and grandeur of the place des Vosges (M° Bastille/Chermin Vert/St-Paul), a magnificent square bordered by arcaded pink-brick and stone mansions, with a formal garden as its centre. A masterpiece of aristocratic elegance and the first example of planned development in the history of Paris, the square was commissioned in 1605 by Henri IV, and was inaugurated in 1612 for the wedding of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria; it is Louis’s statue – or, rather, a replica of it – that stands hidden by chestnut trees in the middle of the gardens. Originally called place Royale, it was renamed Vosges in 1800 in honour of the département, the first to pay its share of the expenses of the revolutionary wars.
Royal patronage of the area goes back to the days when a royal palace, the Hôtel de Tournelles, stood on the north side of what is now the place de Vosges. It remained in use until 1559, having served also as the residence of the Duke of Bedford when he governed northern France in the name of England in the 1420s. Catherine de Médicis had the Hôtel des Tournelles demolished after the death of her husband Henri II in 1559 and the vacant space became a huge horse market, trading between one and two thousand horses every Saturday. So it remained until Henri IV decided on the construction of his place Royale.
Through all the vicissitudes of history, the place has never lost his cachet as a smart address. Today, well-heeled Parisians pause in the arcades to look at art, antique and fashion shops, and lunch alfresco at the restaurants while buskers play classical music and jazz. In the garden, toddlers, octogenarians, workers and schoolchildren on lunch breaks sit or play in the only green space of any size in the locality – unusually for Paris, you’re allowed to sprawl on the grass.
Among the many celebrities who made their homes here was Victor Hugo; the second-floor apartment, at no.6, where he lived from 1832 to 1848 and wrote much of Les Misérables, is now a museum, the Maison de Victor Hugo (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; closed hols; free) Hugo’s life, including his nineteen years of exile in Jersey and Guernsey, is evoked through a somewhat sparse collection of memorabilia, portraits, photographs and first edition of is works.
What do you get, though, is an idea of Hugo’s prodigious creativity; as well as being a profile writer, he drew - a number of his ink drawings are exhibited – and designed his own Gothic-style furniture, In which he let his imagination run riot, as seen in some of the pieces displayed; he even put together the extraordinary Chinese-style dining room re-created in its entirety here and originally designed for the house of his lover Juliette Drouet in Guernsey. Among the family portraits is one by Auguste Chatillon of Hugo’s daughter, Léopoldine, shown holding of a Book of Hours open at the Dormition of the Virgin – a somewhat poignant detail, given that eight years later at the age of 19 she drowned, along with her husband of just six months. Her loss inspired some of Hugo’s most moving poetry, including well-known Demain dès l’aube.
From the southwest corner of the place des Vosges, a door leads through to the formal château garden, orangerie and exquisite Renaissance facade of the Hotel de Sully. The garden, with its park benches, makes for a peaceful rest-stop; it’s also a handy shortcut through to rue St-Antoine. Temporary photographic exhibitions, usually with social, historical or anthropological themes, are mounted in the hotel by the Jeu de Paume (Tues-Fri noon-7pm, Sat & Sun 10am-7pm; €5; www.jeudepaume.org). The attached bookshop has an extensive collection of books on Paris, some in English.
A short distance back to the west along rue St-Antoine, almost opposite the sixteenth-century church of St-Paul-St-Louis, which was inaugurated by Cardinal Richelieu, you’ll find another square. A complete contrast to the imposing formality of the place des Vosges, the tiny place du Marché-Ste-Catherine is a perfect example of that other great French architectural talent: an unerring eye for the intimate, the mall-scale, the apparently accidental and the irresistibly charming.
