I Prefer Paris

Behind the Paris Street Signs Series 4: Le Marais and Bastille

For series four of Behind the Paris Street Signs, I stayed mostly in my neighborhood, the Marais, and a little bit beyond, to the Bastille. 

Boulevard Beaumarchais 

The Boulevard Beaumarchais runs from the Place de la Bastille to Boulevard Filles-du-Calvaire, which is an extension of the same boulevard that eventually ends at Place de la Republique. It is named after the celebrated playwright and writer, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799), who wrote two of the most famous comedies of the time, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, which were both later adapted into iconic operas. Beaumarchais had many other talents and skills besides writing including an inventor- inventing an important watch mechanism (his father was a watchmaker), musician, diplomat, arms dealer, and a spy. Beaumarchais was an early supporter of the American Revolution and later became part of the French Revolution. In his personal life, Beaumarchais was married three times and at one point was accused by his enemies of poisoning his first two wives in order to inherit their fortunes. 

Just off the rue Saint Antoine, right before Place de la Bastille, is a bronze statue of Beaumarchais, standing erect, proudly folding his arms. 

Rue Necker

Jacques Necker, who lived from 1732 until 1804, was a banker from Geneva who later became a finance minister under King Louis XVI, a French statesman, and a political economist. His role of finance minister from 1777 to 1781, for which he was eventually fired from, after creating a controversy, when he publicly disclosed the country’s budget publicly, when they were always hidden by the rule of the monarchy. 

There’s a children’s hospital in Paris named after Necker. 

Rue Amelot 

In the 11^th arrondissement, rue Amelot is named after Antoine-Jean Amelot de Chaillou, who was a French politician who held various government positions including president of Grand Conseil/Grand Council, Secretary of State of the Département de la Maison du Roi, and intendant of finances. De Chaillou also held various positions at the French Academy of Sciences, from an honorary member to eventually becoming the president in 1779. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1792, like other nobles of the time, and died in the Luxembourg Prison in 1795. 

Rue Clotilde de Vaux

More like a passageway in between Boulevard Beaumarchais and rue Amelot, Rue Clotilde de Vaux is named after Clotilde de Vaux, a writer who inspired philosopher and writer August Comte to invent the secular Religion of Humanity. De Vaux, who was born in Paris and lived from 1815 to 1846 (she tragically died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 31), was forced into an arranged marriage by her family, but her husband turned out to be a scoundrel who abandoned de Vaux and fled to Belgium, running up a sizeable gambling debt. She moved to the rue Payenne in the Marais, and became a writer, writing short stories for literary magazines. In 1844, she met Auguste Comte, who at the time was a professor at Ecole Polytechnique. Comte fell madly in love with de Vaux and even though she didn’t return his love, she agreed to exchange letters until she died in 1846.

Rue Roger Verlomme

Rue Roger Verlomme has one of my favorite Marais restaurants on it, Chez Janou, which serves an incomparable chocolate mousse. Roger Verlomme was born in 1890 and died in 1950 and held many important government jobs including a private secretary in the army during WWI, and the prefect in various departments in France. He forsake his government duties in WWII because he didn’t support the Vichy Government’s policies, and joined the Resistance in 1940, along with his son. His last position was the prestigious Prefect of the Seine. There’s a public school named after Verlomme in the 15^th arrondissement. 

 

 

 

Behind the Paris Street Signs-Series 3: Le Quartier de l'Europe

In the beginning of October, I had a doctor’s appointment on the rue de Turin in the eighth arrondissement. Far from the commercial and luxurious side we associate the eighth arrondissement with, which includes the Champs Elysees, the Four Seasons Hotel and other five-star hotels, and designer boutiques on Ave. Montaigne, this particular part of the eighth arrondissement where my doctor’s office is, is a quiet, semi-residential, middle-class neighborhood of Paris. 

The name rue de Turin (Turin means Torino, the city in Italy) is part of a set of streets named after European capitals in an area named Le Quartier de l'Europe. I discovered this quaint area in 2010 and was fascinated by how the area came about historically. I only found some basic facts about the area online, but I was hungry for more details. I asked my friend Thirza Vallois, the historian and author of a series of books about Paris, if she had more information about Le Quartier de l'Europe. Not only did she have more information about it, she generously wrote a comprehensive article about it for Eye Prefer Paris in 2011. After my doctor’s appointment, I took photos of as many of the streets I could find, and I thought it would be fun to feature them as part of my Behind the Paris Street Signs Series. 

One notable change form the last time I was in the area, is the Place d’Europe, an intersection where many of the streets converge, has been renamed Place Simone Veil.  A Jewish concentration camp survivor, Simone Veil became one of the most influential women in France, as a lawyer, human rights advocate, and the Minister of Health of France. Her most significant accomplishment was that she was instrumental in the passing of the bill to legalize abortion in France in 1975. Veil was buried in the Pantheon, after she died in 2017 at the age of 90 and was the fifth woman to have been buried there.  

Here’s a complete list of the streets named after European capitals in the Le Quartier de l'Europe- Rue d’Amsterdam, rue de Bruxelles, rue de Bucarest, rue de Constantinople, rue d'Édimbourg, rue de Florence, rue de Liege, rue de Lisbonne, rue de Londres, rue de Madrid, rue de Milan, rue de Moscou, rue de Naples, rue de Rome, rue de Saint-Petersbourg, rue de Stockholm, rue de Turin, and rue de Vienne. 

Click here to read the original post with the Thirza Vallois article about the Le Quartier de l'Europe. 

Coming Soon: My Emily In Paris Video Tour

I’m excited to tell you I am launching an Emily In Paris Video Tour, starring me, not Emily, next week.

In the 30-minute video I visit the many of the locations where the show was shot and tell you the history plus give you some insider scoops about Paris. I also make my onscreen singing debut in the video, singing a verse from a classic French song. I used to sing sometimes at open mike piano bars when I lived in New York.

If you have been living under a rock, and don’t know what Emily in Paris is, it’s the new hit TV series on Netflix, about a beautiful, smart, young, American woman who is suddenly whisked away to Paris for a new job at a French marketing firm, and her adventures, challenges and mishaps, trying to make her way in the city. Click here to read my review and details about the show.

The price to watch the video will be $12.

 

Behind the Paris Street Signs-Series 2, 16th Arrondissment

Did you like the first series in July of Behind the Paris Street Signs? 

Here’s group two of the series. I’ve been spending time in the 16^th arrondissement and spotted many signs with musicians, composers, and singers, so that’s the theme for this series.

Alée Maria Callas

I’m sure you know who Maria Callas is, but if you don’t, she was one of the great opera singers of the mid-20^th century. Born Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos in New York City in 1923, of Greek immigrant parents and received her musical training in Greece when she was 13. She was a soprano and made her musical debut in 1938, singing a duet from Tosca.

She rose to fame in the 1950s and 1960s, singing some of the most demanding opera roles all over the world. Her personal life, filled with scandal and disappointment, could have been an opera itself. While married, she had an intense affair with Aristotle Onassis, and was devastated when he rejected her and married Jackie Kennedy. There were many scandals she was involved with in the opera world, which labeled her a “diva”. Callas spent the last few years of her life, mostly a recluse, living in the 16^th arrondissement on Ave. Georg Mandel, before she died at the age of 53. Alée Maria Callas runs down the Ave. George Mandel, as a tree lined divider for cars to park.

Rue Spontini 

Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini was an Italian opera composer and conductor who lived from 1774 to 1851. He was born in Italy but spent most of his time in Paris and Berlin. He studied at a conservatory in Naples and toured Italy until his big break came in Rome. His first successes were comedies and in 1804 Spontini moved to Paris. In 1807 Empress Josephine, the wife of Napoleon, encouraged him to write tragic operas, and went on to his most successful composition La Vestale.  Napoleon promoted Spontini’s operas and was made a chevalier of Napoleon's Legion of Honor.

Rue Verdi 

The Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, 1813 –1901, wrote many of the most performed and popular operas including La Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, Il Trovatore, Falstaff, Don Carlos, and Un Ballo in Maschera. In 1847 Verdi moved to Paris and lived here for two years until he returned to Italy. Verdi was awarded the Order of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government. 

Rue Gustave Naudad

Gustave Naudad (1820-1893) was a songwriter and singer. He was an accountant, and at age 28, started writing songs as a hobby.  Naudad was prolific and wrote over 300 songs, many of them political, which were banned under the Second French Empire.

Ave. Mozart 

Mozart came to Paris at the incredible age of seven years old. His father, Leopold, supported his family, by making appointments with wealthy aristocrats and royalty to have his son Wolfgang and daughter, Maria Anna, a harpsichordist, play for them. In 1763 Leopold, booked a three year “tour”, traveling all over Europe promoting the talents of his children and they played in Paris, the Imperial courts of Prague and Vienna, Amsterdam, London, Dover, Zurich, and Munich. 

When I give my Marais tour, I show clients an historic former mansion/hotel particulier, Hotel de Beauvais, just down the street from me, where Mozart and his sister played for the owner, a wealthy aristocrat, in 1763. Mozart later returned to Paris in 1778 for six months with his mother but had much disdain for the city. He complained Paris was a dump, the streets filthy and muddy, the people rude and obnoxious, and about the treatment of musicians, who were considered servants. Mozart was also disillusioned as he was broke, and the French court was not very receptive to his talents. 

I am happy to have the prolific author John Baxter as my guest on A Bite of Paris. John has written many books about Paris including The Most Beautiful Walk in World, We’ll Always Have Paris, and books about the neighborhoods of Paris. Montmartre, Saint Germain des Pres, and Montmartre. John has also written two books about food in France, The Perfect Meal and Eating Eternity. 

John and I had coffee outdoors at the pastry shop and café, Gerard Mulot, in Saint Germain des Pres. 

Please watch the video at this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpPCLR-6ACg

For more about John and to purchase his books go to https://www.johnbaxterparis.com/

Please share this video and don’t forget to subscribe to my You Tube channel.

 

New Series: Behind the Paris Street Signs, Le Marais

While walking the streets of Paris have you ever noticed the blue street signs that sometimes are named after someone, and there’s a line or two describing who they are? 

I’ve always been intrigued by the people listed on the signs, and thought someday, one day I would further research \them. After 15 years of living here, I finally decided to hunker down and actually do the research.

This is the first entry in my new series Behind the Paris Street Signs. Each time I will write about a series of six signs. For the first run, I’m writing about signs in the Marais, close to my house. 

If you have any suggestions for streets you want to know more about, please send me the name, and I will feature it in an upcoming series. 

Rue Jules Cousin

Rue Jules Cousin, is in the 4^th arrondissement, just off of Blvd. Henri IV. Jules Cousin was born in Paris in 1830, and at an early age he started collecting books about the history of Paris along with historic prints. He was a librarian at La Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal but when it was destroyed by a fire during the Communard Revolution in 1870, he was called upon to create a new library at the Carnavalet, the former 17^th century palace of Madame Sévigné. Cousin donated his collection of 6,000 books and over 10,000 prints to the Carnavalet. In 1880 he received permission to merge the museum and the library and was appointed the curator of both. He died in 1899 at his home on Place des Vosges. 

Rue Rambuteau 

Rue Rambuteau is an east to west street, going from the Marais to Les Halles. Claude-Philibert Barthelot, the count of Rambuteau, was born in 1781 in the Burgundy region to an aristocratic family. He had an important position during Napoleon’s reign, and later went on to fight in the battle of Waterloo. Out of a job after the battle as the Second Restoration was the new government, he retired for 15 years until he was the Prefect of the Seine from 1833 to 1848. Now under the reign of King Louis Phillipe, he dedicates himself to making sure Parisians have enough water, air, and shade. Rambuteau starts to envision a cleaner and more modern Paris and coincides with Baron Haussmann, to transform the city by installing a new sewer system, widening the streets, increasing the amount of beds at the hospitals, and designating green spaces in the city along with newly planted trees. His big claim to fame, which is stated on the sign, is that he updated the streetlamps of Paris by replacing the obsolete oil lamps with gas and by the end of his tenure, there were 8600 gas lamps in Paris. 

 Rue Ferdinand Duval

Rue Ferdinand Duval is a one block street in the 4^th arrondissement, that runs between rue de Rivoli and ends at rue des Rosiers. Ferdinand Duval was a lawyer, journalist, and politician. Similar to Rambuteau, he served as the prefect of the Seine from 1873 to 1879. 

 Rue de Sévigné

Rue de Sevigne is a south to north street in the third and fourth arrondissement, that begins at rue Saint Antoine, and ends at rue Parc Royal, intersecting the Carnavalet Museum. It is named after Marie de Rabutin-Chantal who was born on the Place des Vosges to an aristocratic family in 1526. She later married the Marquis de Sévigné and she became known as Madame Sévigné. She lived in the Carnavalet palace from 1677 until she died in 1696. She’s best known as the foremost, female letter writer of France. 

 Passage Walter Benjamin

The name Walter Benjamin, sounds like an American name but in fact Benjamin was German. Born into an affluent family in Germany, they later moved to Paris for his father’s business as a banker. Benjamin became an influential philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist. He wrote a number of well received books and also wrote essays about writers including Goethe, Baudelaire, and Kafka, plus he translated Remembrance of Things Passed by Proust. At age 48, he committed suicide in small town on the French Spanish border trying to escape from the Nazi invasion. 

Rue Jacques Coeur 

Rue Jacques Coeur is a one block street near the Bastille, that runs in between the rue Saint Antoine and Blvd. Henri IV. Jacques Coeur, born in 1399, was a prominent merchant and initiated trade between France and the Levant region which is now Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel. In 1436, King Charles VII, appointed him the head of the mint. He was also an alchemist and a silversmith.