The boulevard Saint-Germain is a boulevard of left bank of Paris.

Situation

Length 3.150 approximately 30 meters meters and broad, the Saint-Germain boulevard leaves the the Seine to the corner of the Quai Saint-Bernard and vis-a-vis the island Saint-Louis, in the 5 {{E}} district, skirts the river to a few hundred meters to the foot of the Montagne Holy-Genevieve, then crosses the 6 {{E}} district and again joined the Seine on the level of the Quai of Orsay, in the 7 {{E}} district.

The boulevard is famous for the districts which it crosses:

  • it is the principal way of the Latin Quarter with the Boulevard Saint-Michel.
  • it crosses the district of Saint-Germain-of-Meadows, which gave him its name.
  • it crosses the Faubourg Saint-Germain, rich in private mansions and described by Proust in With the research of time lost .

With the angle of the Rue Bonaparte the abbey of Saint-Germain-of-Meadows is, named thus to differ from Saint-Germain-the Auxerrois. Opposite the abbey is located the coffee the Two Nest eggs, which forms one of the three angles of the “gold Triangle” with the Lipp brewery, establishment celebrates to accommodate political personalities, and the Coffee of Flora, one of the most famous literary coffees, where the winners of the Prix Goncourt find themselves, the poets of all the times, and where became some ideologists of the Russian or Chinese revolutions and many celebrities among the greatest literary personalities.

History

It is one of the projects conceived personally by the baron Haussmann at the time of the alterations of Paris under the Second Empire. It supplemented on left bank the boulevards of Right Bank and facilitated the East-West service road of the central districts on left bank.

The boring of the Saint-Germain boulevard involved the demolition of a big number of old hotels of the Saint-Germain suburb.

It partly absorbed the oriental party of the Rue Saint-Dominique (between the Rue of the Holy Father and the street Saint-Dominique). Between the Street of Rennes and the street of the Holy Father, the odd numbers correspond to a side of old the Rue Taranne.

Part of the Événements of May 1968 proceeded Boulevard Saint-Germain, in front of the Sorbonne where Barricade S were drawn up.

Remarkable buildings

  • n° 117 (angle of the Street Gregoire-of-Turns): Building built in 1877 - 1879 by Charles Garnier for the Circle of the Bookstore, professional association of the trades of the book. The building on the street Gregoire-of-Turns was prolonged at the end of the 19th century. The 117 shelters today the school of journalism of Sciences Po.
  • n° 142 : Restaurant Vagenende : Old bubble going back to 1905. Vagenende was the name of the owner in 1920.
  • n° 143 : Hotel Madison : André Malraux spent the winter 1937 there.
  • n° 145 : rule of Denis Diderot pointing out the place where he lived, then Rue Taranne.
  • n° 166 : the Rum distillery : Bar attended in particular by Antonin Artaud.
  • n° 168 (a) : The Felix-Desruelles public garden is a vestige of the old garden of the Abbaye of Saint-Germain-of-Meadows. It contains a statue of Bernard Palissy by Louis-Ernest Barrias and, against the wall of the close building, an enamelled sandstone frontage conceived by the architect Charles Risler and the sculptor Jules Coutan to illustrate the use of the products of the national Manufacture of Sevres at the time of the World Fair of 1900.
  • n° 184 : Building built in 1878 by the architect Edouard Leudière for the Company of Geography. Two caryatids, representing the Earth and the Sea, and the terrestrial sphere in frontage were carved by Emile Soldi. The initial distribution of the buildings included/understood at the ground floor, the big room of meetings (preserved), a room of the lost steps, a cloakroom, a housing of caretaker; on the 1st floor, a room of commission and the cabinet of the president; with 2nd and 3rd stages, the library and a room of commission; with 4th, the apartment of the agent of the Company. See note detailed on the site of the Company of Geography
  • n° 215 (and n°s 2 and 4 rue Saint-Simon): Hotel of Renaissance style (1881 - 1883). Appendix of the national Foundation of political sciences.
  • n° 217 : Hotel of Varangeville (in the past located on the Street Saint-Dominique) built in 1704 by the architect Jacques V Gabriel but damaged in 1876 by the boring of the Saint-Germain boulevard. Property of the Banque de France and joined together with the hotel Amelot de Gournay (V. n° 1 rue Saint-Dominique). Shelter today the Maison of the Latin America , founded in 1946 on the initiative it Ministry for Foreign Affairs to reinforce and develop the relations and the exchanges of any nature between France and the Republics of Latin America.
  • n° 218 : Hotel (in the past located on the Rue Saint-Dominique) which was inhabited in 1741 by the duke of Saint-Simon.
  • n° 231 : Ministry for defense: It occupies most of the small island between the Saint-Germain boulevard, the Rue Saint-Dominique and the street of the University. The building of offices on the boulevard was built in 1876 - 1877 by the architect Jules Bouchot.
  • n° 244 : Buildings built for the public Ministry of Labor by Antoine Isidore Eugene Godebœuf in 1861 and joined together with the n° 246. Services of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs shelter today (head office of the international cooperation and development, direction of the French abroad and foreigners in France).
  • n° 246 : Hotel of Roquelaure (known as also Hotel Mole ): The marshal Antoine Gaston de Roquelaure (1656 - 1738) acquires in 1709 a “small house” built in 1695 whom it decides to make increase starting from 1724 under the direction of Pierre Cailleteau says Lassurance (1660 - 1724) then, after the death of this last, of his/her collaborator Jean-Baptiste Leroux (1676 - 1747), author in particular of the decoration of the hall and the cabinet of the marshal. Interior decorations are then carried out to leave in 1733 - 1734 by the famous ornementist Nicolas Pineau (1684 - 1754), whose the decoration of the room of parade of the marshal remains. The hotel is bought in 1740 by Mathieu-François Molé, President with mortar with the Parlement of Paris, which makes it transform by the architect Jean-Michel Chevotet and orders painted decorations with Charles-Joseph Natoire (small living room, room of parade) and with Jean-Baptiste Oudry (dining room). The hotel is seized in 1793 and is transformed into asylum of scabious before being restored with the Famille Mole. In 1808, the hotel is joined together with the hotel of close Lesdiguières (V. n° 248) for Cambacérès, which acquired the two buildings and until its departure for the exile in 1816 resides at it. The unit is transformed by François-Hippolyte Destailleur for Louise Marie Adélaïde of Bourbon, duchess of Orleans, owner in 1816. Under the Monarchy of July, the hotel is initially affected with the Council of State for which Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine creates in 1832 the large staircase and a room of meetings. In 1839, it is affected with the Ministry of Labor public and transformed by Felix Duban. It is always, today, the hotel of the ministry for Ecology, the Development and the Installation durable, whose services are located which occurred of Ségur and in the Arche of Defense.
  • n° 248 : Hotel of Lesdiguières (known as also Hotel of Béthune-Sully ): A house built by Antoine Desgodets was bought in 1706 by the duchess of Lesdiguières which made it increase by Boirette. Louis Marie Maximilien de Béthune, duke of Sully, made it transform by Jean-Michel Chevotet between 1747 and 1750. The hotel was attached in 1808 to the hotel of Roquelaure.
  • n° 288 (angle of the Quay Anatole-France): Remarkable building Second Empire, example of the style haussmannien of the best invoice.

Destroyed buildings

References and sources

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