Boulevard Saint-Michel () is one of the two major streets in the

Latin Quarter The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne. Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistro ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, the other being

Boulevard Saint-Germain Boulevard Saint-Germain () is a major street in Paris on the Rive Gauche of the Seine. It curves in a 3.5-kilometre (2.1 miles) arc from the Pont de Sully in the east (the bridge at the edge of Île Saint-Louis) to the Pont de la Concorde ...

. It is a tree-lined boulevard which runs south from the

Pont Saint-Michel Pont Saint-Michel is a bridge linking the Place Saint-Michel on the left bank of the river Seine to the Île de la Cité. It was named after the nearby chapel of Saint-Michel. It is near Sainte Chapelle and the Palais de Justice. The present 6 ...

on the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/ Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributa ...

and Place Saint-Michel, crosses Boulevard Saint-Germain and continues alongside the Sorbonne and the

Jardin du Luxembourg The Jardin du Luxembourg (), known in English as the Luxembourg Garden, colloquially referred to as the Jardin du Sénat (Senate Garden), is located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. Creation of the garden began in 1612 when Marie de' ...

, ending at the Place Camille Jullian just before the

Port-Royal Port Royal is the former capital city of Jamaica. Port Royal or Port Royale may also refer to: Institutions * Port-Royal-des-Champs, an abbey near Paris, France, which spawned influential schools and writers of the 17th century ** Port-Royal Ab ...

RER station and the Avenue de l'Observatoire. It was created by

Baron Haussmann Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

to run parallel to Rue Saint-Jacques which marks the historical north-south axis of Paris. It is known colloquially as ''Boul'Mich'' in French. The boulevard serves as a boundary between the

5th Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five. Fifth or The Fifth may refer to: * Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth" * Fifth column, a political term * Fifth disease, a contagious rash tha ...

and 6th arrondissements of Paris; odd-numbered buildings on the eastern side are in the 5th arrondissement and even numbers on the western side are in the 6th. It has a length of 1,380 m (4,530 ft), an average width of 30 m (98 ft) and takes its name from the Pont Saint-Michel. As the central axis of the Latin Quarter, it has long been a hotbed of student life and activism, but tourism is also a major commercial focus of the street and designer shops have gradually replaced many small bookshops. The northern part of the boulevard is now the most frequented, due to its bookstores (such as Gibert Joseph and the Gibert Jeune), cafes, cinema and clothes shops. The main buildings of the boulevard are the

Musée de Cluny The Musée de Cluny ("Cluny Museum", ), also known as Musée national du Moyen Âge – Thermes et hôtel de Cluny ("National Museum of the Middle Ages – Cluny thermal baths and mansion"), is a museum of the Middle Ages in Paris, ...

, the

Lycée Saint-Louis The lycée Saint-Louis is a highly selective post-secondary school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in the Latin Quarter. It is the only public French lycée exclusively dedicated to providing '' classes préparatoires aux grandes ...

, the

École des Mines École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

and the university facilities of the Sorbonne.

History

The boulevard Saint-Michel was the other important part of

Haussmann's renovation of Paris Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval neighbo ...

on the Left Bank along with the creation of the

boulevard Saint-Germain Boulevard Saint-Germain () is a major street in Paris on the Rive Gauche of the Seine. It curves in a 3.5-kilometre (2.1 miles) arc from the Pont de Sully in the east (the bridge at the edge of Île Saint-Louis) to the Pont de la Concorde ...

. It was formerly approximated by the ''rue de la Harpe'' which for centuries led from the Seine to the Porte Saint-Michel, a gate to the walls of Paris near what is now the intersection of the Boulevard Saint-Michel and rue Monsieur le Prince. Construction of the Boulevard was decreed in 1855 and began in 1860. The boulevard was initially known as the ''boulevard de Sébastopol Rive Gauche'', but was changed to Boulevard Saint-Michel in 1867. The name is derived from the eponymous gate destroyed in 1679 and the subsequent Saint-Michel market in the same area (the current Place Edmond Rostand). Numerous streets disappeared as a result of the boulevard's creation, including 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 the ''rue Henri Barbusse'' and the ''rue de l'Abbé de l'Epée'' was previously known as the ''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 Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the '' fin de siècle'' in international and ...

and

Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he start ...

Jules Vallès Jules Vallès (11 June 1832 – 14 February 1885) was a French journalist, author, and left-wing political activist. Early life Vallès was born in Le Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire. His father was a supervisor of studies (''pion''), later a teac ...

, socialist writer and survivor of the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...

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 Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limits, and related theories, such as differentiation, integration, measure, infinite sequences, series, and analytic functions. These theories are usually studied ...

. This meeting included

Henri Cartan Henri Paul Cartan (; 8 July 1904 – 13 August 2008) was a French mathematician who made substantial contributions to algebraic topology. He was the son of the mathematician Élie Cartan, nephew of mathematician Anna Cartan, oldest brother of c ...

Claude Chevalley Claude Chevalley (; 11 February 1909 – 28 June 1984) was a French mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, algebraic geometry, class field theory, finite group theory and the theory of algebraic groups. He was a fou ...

Jean Delsarte Jean Frédéric Auguste Delsarte (19 October 1903, Fourmies – 28 November 1968, Nancy) was a French mathematician known for his work in mathematical analysis, in particular, for introducing mean-periodic functions and generalised shift o ...

Jean Dieudonné Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné (; 1 July 1906 – 29 November 1992) was a French mathematician, notable for research in abstract algebra, algebraic geometry, and functional analysis, for close involvement with the Nicolas Bourbaki pseudonym ...

René de Possel Lucien Alexandre Charles René de Possel (7 February 1905 – 1974) was a French mathematician, one of the founders of the Bourbaki group, and later a pioneer computer scientist, working in particular on optical character recognition. Life Poss ...

and

André Weil André Weil (; ; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998) was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was a founding member and the ''de facto'' early leader of the mathematical Bourbaki group. Th ...

. They were, together with others, to become famous in mathematical circles as the

Bourbaki Group Nicolas Bourbaki () is the collective pseudonym of a group of mathematicians, predominantly French alumni of the École normale supérieure - PSL (ENS). Founded in 1934–1935, the Bourbaki group originally intended to prepare a new textbook ...

Access

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 Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

on the Place Edmond Rostand (at the intersection with the Rue Gay-Lussac). *

near the southern end (across the Place Camille Jullian).

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 residenc
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 Catulle Mendès (22 May 1841 – 8 February 1909) was a French poet and man of letters. Early life and career Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, Mendès was born in Bordeaux. After childhood and adolescence in Toulouse, he arrived in Paris in 185 ...

Joris-Karl Huysmans Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel '' À rebour ...

and

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

. * 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 Simone may refer to: * Simone (given name), a feminine (or Italian masculine) given name of Hebrew origin * Simone (surname), an Italian surname Simone may also refer to: * Simone (1918 film), ''Simone'' (1918 film), a French silent drama film * S ...

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 Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (7 November 1838 – 19 August 1889) was a French symbolist writer. His family called him Mathias while his friends called him Villiers; he would also use the name Auguste wh ...

... * n° 44:

* 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 * 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 Félix-Henri "Henry" Bataille (4 April 1872, in Nîmes – 2 March 1922, in Rueil-Malmaison) was a French dramatist and poet. His works were popular between 1900 and the start of World War I. Bataille's parents died when he was young. He atten ...

of the literary magazine

Mercure de France The was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group. The gazette was published ...

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 An academician is a full member of an artistic, literary, engineering, or scientific academy. In many countries, it is an honorific title used to denote a full member of an academy that has a strong influence on national scientific life. In syst ...

Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle and bears a 1934 plaque in his memory. The poet Auguste Lacaussade also lived here. * 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° 74: On April 7, 1987, the Algerian lawyer Me Ali Mecili, an opponent of the

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

n government, was assassinated here. * 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. * 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).

Literature

* Mentioned in the poem ("Párisban járt az ősz", "Autumn appeared in Paris") of the Hungarian poet

Endre Ady Endre Ady (Hungarian: ''diósadi Ady András Endre,'' archaic English: Andrew Ady, 22 November 1877 – 27 January 1919) was a turn-of-the-century Hungarian poet and journalist. Regarded by many as the greatest Hungarian poet of the 20th century ...

, 1906 * Mentioned in ''Of Human Bondage'', Chapter 44 by

W. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

, 1915 * Mentioned in "Noctambule", ''Ballads of a Bohemian'' by Robert Service, 1921 * Mentioned in "Ulysses" chapter 3 by

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

, 1922 * Mentioned in "The Sun Also Rises" by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

, 1926 * Mentioned in "How it Feels to Be Colored Me" by

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four n ...

, 1928 * Mentioned in "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes, 1936 * Illustrated in "Madeline's Rescue" by

Ludwig Bemelmans Ludwig Bemelmans (April 27, 1898 – October 1, 1962) was an Austrian-American writer and illustrator of children's books and adult novels. He is known best for the ''Madeline'' picture books. Six were published, the first in 1939. Early life ...

, 1951 * Mentioned in "68 Boulevard Saint-Michel" by Danielle Martinigol and Alain Grousset, 1999

Music

* Mentioned in "Where Do You Go to My Lovely" by Peter Sarstedt, 1969 * Mentioned in "Jessica" by Harpo, 1976 * Mentioned in "

Parisienne Walkways "Parisienne Walkways" is a song by guitarist Gary Moore that reached number 8 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1979. The song is featured on Moore's album '' Back on the Streets'' and features a vocal from Thin Lizzy frontman, Phil Lynott, who ...

" by

Gary Moore Robert William Gary Moore (4 April 19526 February 2011) was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal, and jazz fus ...

, 1979 * Mentioned in "Look Down" in ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its origin ...

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 taken up by

Ferdinand Lop Ferdinand Samuel Lop, later Samuel Ferdinand-Lop, known as Ferdinand Lop (10 October 1891 in Marseille – 29 October 1974 in Saint-Sébastien-de-Morsent) was a French Jewish journalist, draughtsman, English language teacher, writer, poet, and hu ...

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 is the version given by Alphonse Allais.

References

External links

Map of Paris (browser plugin required)

{{Authority control Saint-Michel, Boulevard 5th arrondissement of Paris 6th arrondissement of Paris