Boulevard Saint-Michel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Boulevard Saint-Michel is one of the two major streets in the Quartier Latin of Paris (the other being the Boulevard Saint-Germain). It is a tree-lined boulevard which runs south from the pont Saint-Michel on the Seine river and the Place Saint-Michel, crosses the boulevard Saint-Germain and continues alongside the Sorbonne and the Luxembourg gardens, ending at the Place Camille Jullian just before the Port-Royal train station and the avenue de l'Observatoire. It was created by Baron Haussmann to run parallel to the rue Saint-Jacques which marks the historical North-South axis of Paris.
It serves as a boundary between the 5th arrondissement and the 6th arrondissement (odd-numbered buildings on the eastern side being in the 5th arrondissement and even numbers on the western side in the 6th). It has a length of 1380 m, an average width of 30 m and derives its name from the pont Saint-Michel (or "Saint Michael" bridge). In slang, the boulevard is sometimes referred to as the Boul'Mich.
As the central axis of the Quartier Latin, it was (and still is) a hotbed of student life and activism, but tourism is also a major commercial focus of the street and designer shops have gradually evicted many small bookshops. The northern part of the boulevard is nowadays the most frequented, due to its bookstores (such as the major bookstores Gibert Joseph and the Gibert Jeune), cafés, cinema and clothes shops.
The main buildings of the boulevard are the Musée de Cluny, the lycée Saint-Louis, the École des Mines, and the cité universitaire, the university area of the Sorbonne.
The closest metro stations are:
- Saint-Michel at the northern end in the Place Saint-Michel.
- Cluny/La Sorbonne at the intersection with the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
- Luxembourg on the Place Edmond Rostand (at the intersection with the Rue Gay-Lussac).
- Port-Royal near the southern end (across the Place Camille Jullian).
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[edit] History
The boulevard Saint-Michel was previously known as the boulevard de Sébastopol Rive Gauche which had swallowed up the rue des Deux Portes Saint-André, the passage d'Harcourt, the rue de Mâcon, the rue Neuve de Richelieu, the rue Poupée, part of rue de la Harpe and of rue d'Enfer, part of the former place Saint-michel and the rue de l'Est. The part of the boulevard Saint-Michel at the entrance of rue Henri Barbusse and rue de l'Abbé de l'Epée was previously known as place Louis Marin.
During 1871, the Hôtel des Etrangers was the meeting place of the Vilains Bonhommes (renamed Circle Zutique by Charles Cros) which included Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.
Jules Vallès, socialist writer and survivor of the Paris Commune was buried in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise. His body was carried there from the funeral home at n° 77, into which 10,000 people are claimed to have squeezed.
On December 10, 1934, the founders of the Comité de rédaction du traité d’analyse met at the Café A. Capoulade, n° 63, to discuss writing a textbook on mathematical analysis. This meeting included Henri Cartan, Claude Chevalley, Jean Delsarte, Jean Dieudonné, René de Possel and André Weil. They were, together with others, to become famous in mathematical circles as the Bourbaki Group.
[edit] Composition
- n° 23b : On the corner with the Boulevard Saint-Germain, is the Musée de Cluny (Musée National du Moyen Âge) which is made up of two listed monuments: the Palais des Thermes which are ruins of Roman baths, and the Hôtel de Cluny, a medieval and renaissance residence Official website, in English.
- n° 24 : The pipe shop, Au Caïd, has been on this corner (with Rue Pierre Sarrazin) since 1878.
- n° 27 : On the corner with the rue des Ecoles was the Café Vachette, frequented by Catulle Mendès, Joris-Karl Huysmans and Stéphane Mallarmé.
- n° 30 : On the corner with the rue Racine in 1871 was the Hôtel des Etrangers, nowadays Hôtel Belloy Saint Germain.
- n° 37 : André Weil and his younger sister Simone moved in January 1914 to a new family home in an apartment in this building. After the war, they returned here in 1919.
- n° 40-42 : The café Sherry Cobbler, frequented by Mallarmé, the humourist Alphonse Allais, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam ...
- n° 44 : Lycée Saint-Louis Website (in French)
- n° 49 : For over 70 years, from 1920 onwards, this was the PUF (Presses universitaires de France) bookshop;
- n° 52 : In 1885, Monsieur Lebas, the editor of Rodolphe Darzens (minor symbolist poet, biographer of Arthur Rimbaud, correspondent of Stéphane Mallarmé) lived here.
- n° 54 : Offices of SMEREP (Société Mutualiste des Étudiants de la Région parisienne) the student Social Security organisation.
- n° 60 : Ecole des Mines Home Page
- n° 63 : At the end of the 19th century this was the location of the Taverne du Panthéon, where associates such as Pierre Louÿs and Henry Bataille of the literary magazine Mercure de France dined. By 1934, it had become the Café A. Capoulade.
- n° 64 : From 1873 to 1894 this was the home of Parnassian poet and Academician Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle and bears a 1934 plaque in his memory. The poet Auguste Lacaussade also lived here.
- n° 65 : On April 7, 1987, the Algerian lawyer Me Ali Mecili, an opponent of the Algerian government, was assassinated here Newsreport (in French).
- n° 68 : Headquarters of the IUATLD (International Union Against TB and Lung Disease).
- n° 71 : Well-known Jazz club Le Petit Journal.
- n° 73 : On the corner of Rue Royer-Collard was Galerie de la Pléiade, an art gallery whose primary focus was photography, founded by Jacques Schiffrin in the Spring of 1931.
- n° 79 : Was the headquarters of the Committee for the Protection of Juvenile Russian Students Outside of Russia founded in 1923, and chaired by Michael Feodorov. The same building also housed the National Russian Committee chaired by Antoine Kartashev (last on the right, on the bench).
- n° 103 : Center for French Universities, professional organisations of the academic community in France.
- n° 111 : Egyptian cultural centre.
- n° 125 : From February 1890 Paul Verlaine resided here at the hôtel des Mines.
- n° 131 : Headquarters of EHESS (Editions De L'école Des Hautes Etudes En Sciences Sociales).
[edit] Literature
1. Mentioned in Of Human Bondage, Chapter 44 by W. Somerset Maugham, 1915.
2. Extract from Noctambule, Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert Service, 1921.
- Zut! it's two o'clock.
- See! the lights are jumping.
- Finish up your bock,
- Time we all were humping.
- Waiters stack the chairs,
- Pile them on the tables;
- Let us to our lairs
- Underneath the gables.
- Up the old Boul' Mich'
- Climb with steps erratic.
- Steady . . . how I wish
- I was in my attic!
- Full am I with cheer;
- In my heart the joy stirs;
- Couldn't be the beer,
- Must have been the oysters.
3. Extract from Ulysses, Chapter 3 (the Proteus episode on Sandymount Beach), by James Joyce, 1922.
My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other devil's name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: physiques, chimiques et naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris, boul' Mich', I used to. Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c'est moi. You seem to have enjoyed yourself.
4. Extract from Mic-Mac Moche au Boul' Mich (Ugly Dealings on the Boulevard Saint-Michel), one of the Nestor Burma series of novels by Léo Malet, 1957, ISBN 2-265-06827-6. Televised in the 2nd season in 1993.
...trois nègres, plantés devant le kiosque à journaux narguaient la température comme s'ils en faisaient une question personnelle d'où le conflit des races ne serait pas absent. Depuis quelques années, ce ne sont pas les fils de Cham qui manquent, au Quartier Latin. Je remontai le Boul'Mich, en croisant un certain nombre. Boul'Mich ? Tu parles ! Bougnoul' Mich', oui !
5. Extract from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, 1954
I went out onto the sidewalk and walked down toward the Boulevard St. Michel, passed the tables of the Rotonde, still crowded, looked across the street at the Dome, its tables running out to the edge of the pavement. Some one waved at me from a table, I did not see who it was and went on. I wanted to get home. The Boulevard Montparnasse was deserted. Lavigne's was closed tight, and they were stacking the tables outside the Closerie des Lilas.
6. Extract from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, 1960
I walked down past the Lycée Henri Quatre and the ancient church of Saint Etienne du Mont and the windswept Place du Panthéon and cut in for shelter to the right and finally came out on the lee side of the Boulevard Saint Michel and worked on down it past the Cluny and the Boulevard Saint Germain until I came to a good café that I knew on the Place Saint Michel.
7. 68, boulevard Saint-Michel, a novel for adolescents by Danielle Martinigol, Alain Grousset, Flammarion, 1999, ISBN 2-08-164381-2
8. Extract from Éphéméride by Patrick Modiano, 2002, ISBN 2-7152-2322-6
Un jour, mon père m'avait confié qu'il fréquentait lui aussi, à dix-huit ans, le quartier des Écoles. Il avait tout juste assez d'argent pour prendre en guise de repas un café au lait et quelques croissants au Dupont-Latin. En ce temps-là, il avait un voile au poumon. Je ferme les yeux et je l'imagine remontant le boulevard Saint-Michel, parmi les sages lycéens et les étudiants d'Action française. Son Quartier latin à lui, c'était plutôt celui de Violette Nozière. Il avait dû la croiser souvent sur le boulevard, Violette, la belle écolière du lycée Fénelon, qui élevait des chauves-souris dans son pupitre.
9. Extract from Rayuela, a novel by Julio Cortazar
...aun ahora, Maga, me preguntaba si este rodeo tenía sentido, ya que para llegar a la rue des Lombards me hubiera convenido más cruzar el Pont Saint-Michel y el Pont au Change. Pero si hubieras estado ahí esa noche, como tantas otras veces, yo habría sabido que el rodeo tenia un sentido, y ahora en cambio envilecía mi fracaso llamándolo rodeo.
[edit] Extension to the sea
A political candidate named Duconnaud famously proposed, as an electoral promise, to extend the boulevard Saint-Michel to the sea . The idea was then taken up by Ferdinand Lop who, responding to the question of how to know at which end it would be extended, answered with panache: It will be extended to the sea at both ends. This at least is the version given by Alphonse Allais.
