6 Ème Arrondissement

The 6 ème ’s grandest attraction is the big and beautiful Jardin de Luxembourg and the palace within it. The Église de St-Sulpice, also a significant site, has much increased in popularity thanks to Dan Brown’s imagination and Tom Hanks’s acting in The Da Vinci Code.

Jardin Du Luxembourg And Odéon

 Jardin Du Luxembourg And Palais Du Luxembourg. “There is nothing more charming, which invites one more enticingly to idleness, reverie, and young love, than a soft spring morning or a beautiful summer dusk at the Jardin du Luxembourg,” wrote Léon Daudet in an absolute fit of sentimentality in 1928. Parisians flock to these spectacular formal gardens—despite the truly violent winds—to sunbathe, stroll, and read by the rose gardens and central pool. The chairs conveniently placed along the paths and big, open views of the sky make it difficult to walk through without pausing to take a seat. Beware of ostentatious PDAs, though: kissing and touching in public is à la mode in Paris. The gardens themselves have been through many eras and uses; a residential area in Roman Paris, the site of a medieval monastery, and later the home of 17th-century French royalty, they were liberated during the Revolution and are now free to all. Children can sail toy boats in the fountain, ride ponies, and see the grand guignol (puppet show; see Entertainment, )while their granddads pitch boules . Visitors saunter through the park’s sandy paths, passing sculptures of France’s queens, poets, and heroes. The best and the brightest come to challenge the local cadre of aged chessmasters to a game under the shady chestnut trees, or sit and nap by the Renaissance facade of the Palais du Luxembourg. One of the loveliest spots in the Jardin is the Fontaine des Médicis, just east of the Palais, a vine-covered grotto complete with a murky fish pond and Baroque fountain sculptures. In 2005, a Swedish artist added a new touch to the ancient fountain: a giant nose. The sculpture is in complete contrast to the surroundings and well worth a visit. A mammoth task force of gardeners tends the grounds—each spring they plant or transplant 350,000 flowers and move 150 palm and orange trees out of winter storage. As in most public parks, you’ll notice " Pelouse Interdite" signs forbidding you to sit on the grass; use the benches or find the grassy knolls where lounging is permitted. (6 ème . Odéon or RER: Luxembourg. The main entrance is on bd. St-Michel. Open daily dawn-dusk. Guided tours in French Apr.-Oct. 1st W of every month at 9:30am and every W during June; depart from pl. André Honorat behind the observatory.) The Palais du Luxembourg, located within the park and built in 1615 for Marie de Medicis, is now home to the French Senate and thus closed to the public. Homesick for Florence, the Queen Marie tried to recreate her native architecture in her new Parisian home. During WWII, the palace was used by the Nazis as headquarters for the Luftwaffe. (6ème. www.monum.fr.)

Musée Du Luxembourg. The Musée du Luxembourg is housed in the historic Palais du Luxembourg and offers rotating art exhibitions featuring everything from classical to contemporary artists. With primary funding from the Ministère de la Culture et la Communication, the Musée has recently exhibited the celebrated oeuvres of Maurice de Vlaminck and Giuseppe Arcimboldo. (19, r. de Vaugirard. Odéon. Walk through the Carrefour de l’Odéon and down r. de Conde; turn right on r. Vaugirard; the museum entrance is on the left. €11, ages 10-25 €9. Open M, F, Sa 10:30am-10pm; Tu, W, Th 10:30am-7pm; Su 9am-7pm. Last entry 45min. before closing. Wheelchair accessible. Audioguides available for €3.50 in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Dutch.)

Palais De L’Institut De France. The Palais de l’Institut de France broods over the Seine from beneath its famous black-and-gold dome. Designed by Le Vau to lodge a college established in Cardinal Mazarin’s will, it has served as a school (1688-1793), a prison (1793-1805), and is now home to the Académie Française, devoted to the patronage of the arts, letters, and sciences. The académicians, who rather modestly call themselves “The Immortals,” were symbolically militarized by Napoleon and thus wear snazzy green jackets and carry swords—very useful in their task of regulating the French language. The glorious building has housed the Académie since 1806 and also contains the Bibliothèque Mazarine, founded in 1643. The Palais is not open to the public, but peek inside the courtyard to the right—if the doors are open—to catch a glimpse of Mazarin’s funeral sculpture. The grounds are frequently open for historical seminars and conferences. (Pl. de l’Institut. Pont Neuf. Walk west on quai du Louvre and cross the Seine on the Pont des Arts. 1 block to the east of the ENSB-A on quai Malaquai. Check Pariscope or Figaroscope for listings of frequent seminars, lectures, and openings. A schedule is also available from just inside the gates in the office on the left.)

Théâtre De L’Odéon. The Théâtre de l’Odéon is Paris’s oldest and largest theater (see Entertainment). Upon its completion in 1782, it was purchased by Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette for the Comédie Française, Molière’s celebrated theater troupe. Beaumarchais’s Marriage of Figaro , which was nearly banned by Louis XVI for its attacks on the nobility, delighted aristocrats at its 1784 premiere. As the revolution approached, the Comédie Française splintered over political loyalties. Republican members moved to the Right Bank, settling into the company’s current location near the Louvre. The actors who remained behind were jailed under the Reign of Terror and the theater closed. It later earned the name théâtre maudit (cursed theater) after two fires and a chain of flops left it nearly bankrupt. The Odéon’s fortunes changed after WWII, when it became a venue for experimental theater. (Odéon. Walk down the Carrefour and r. de l’Odéon to pl. de l’Odéon.)

Église St-Sulpice. The Neoclassical facade of Église St-Sulpice dominates the large square of the same name, stomping ground for children and street vendors and home to a lovely fountain. Designed by Servadoni in 1733, the church is unfinished, and also in need of a restoration. Look for the set of Delacroix frescoes in the first chapel on the right ( Jacob Wrestling with the Angel and Heliodorus Driven from the Temple ), Jean-Baptiste Pigalle’s Virgin and Child in a rear chapel, and a large organ used in frequent concerts. The stark, poorly-lit interior provides an unbecoming setting for these three gems. In the transept, an inlaid copper band runs along the floor from north to south, connecting a plaque in the south to an obelisk in the north. A ray of sunshine passes through a hole in the upper window of the south transept during the winter solstice, striking a marked point on the obelisk at midday. A beam of sunlight falls on the copper plaque during the summer solstice, and behind the communion table during the spring and autumn equinoxes. (50, r. Vaugirard. St-Sulpice or Mabillon. From Mabillon, walk down r. du Four and make a left onto r. Mabillon, which intersects r. St-Sulpice at the entrance to the church.☎ 01 42 34 59 60; www.paroisse-saint-sulpice-paris.org. Open daily 7:30am-7:30pm. Guided tour in French Su 3pm.)

St-Germain-Des-Prés

Known as the Village de St-Germain-des-Prés, the area around boulevard St-Germain between St-Sulpice and the Seine is packed with cafes, restaurants, galleries, cinemas, and expensive boutiques.

Boulevard St-Germain. Most famous as the former literati hangout of Existentialists (who frequented the Café de Flore) and Surrealists (who preferred Les Deux Magots), the bd. St-Germain is torn between nostalgia for its smoky, intellectual past and unabashed delight with all things fashionable and cutting-edge. It is home to scores of cafes, both new and old, where expensive coffee is de rigeur. The boulevard and the many sidestreets around rue de Rennes have become a serious shopping area (see Shopping), filled with designer boutiques. (St-Germain-des-Prés.)

Église St-Germain-Des-Prés. The Église St-Germain-des-Prés is the oldest church in Paris, and it shows: the only remaining decorations on the church’s exterior are pink and white hollyhocks growing on one side. The last remnant of what was once one of the richest abbeys in the world, the church was the centerpiece of the Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés, a center of Catholic intellectual life until it was disbanded during the Revolution. King Childebert I commissioned a church on this site to hold relics he had looted from the Holy Land. Completed in AD 558, it was consecrated by Germain, Bishop of Paris, on the day of King Childebert’s death—the king was buried inside the church’s walls.

The rest of the church’s history reads like an architectural Book of Job. Sacked by the Normans and rebuilt three times, the present-day church dates from the 11th century. On June 30, 1789, precocious revolutionaries seized the church two weeks before the storming of the Bastille. The church then had a brief stint as a saltpeter mill, and in 1794, 15 tons of gunpowder that had been stored in the abbey exploded. The ensuing fire devastated the church’s artwork and treasures, including much of its monastic library. Haussmann destroyed the last remains of the deteriorating abbey walls and gates when he extended rue de Rennes to the front of the church and created pl. St-Germain-des-Prés. What remains of the abbey’s exterior looks appropriately world-weary.

Completely redone in the 19th century, the magnificent interior is painted in shades of maroon, deep green, and gold—enough regal grandeur to counteract the building’s modest exterior. Especially striking are the royal blue and gold-starred ceiling, frescoes (by a pupil of Ingres) depicting the life of Jesus, and decorative mosaics along the archways. In the second chapel—on the right after the apse—a stone marks the interred heart of 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, who died of pneumonia at the frigid court of Queen Christina of Sweden. Here, visitors can also find an altar dedicated to the victims of the September 1792 massacre, in which 186 refractory priests were slaughtered in the courtyard. The information window at the entrance has a schedule of the church’s frequent concerts. (3 pl. St-Germain-des-Prés. St-Germain-des-Prés. Walk through pl. St-Germain-des-Prés to enter from the front. ☎ 01 55 42 81 33. Open daily 8am-7:45pm. Info office open M 2:30-6:45pm, Tu-F 10:30am-noon and 2:30-6:45pm, Sa 3-6:45pm.)

École Nationale Supérieure Des Beaux-Arts. Napoleon founded France’s most acclaimed art school in 1811 and it quickly became the stronghold of French academic painting and sculpture. Its current building, the Palais des Études, was finished in 1838 and represents a mix of architectural styles. Though the public is not normally permitted to tour the building, you may be able to prowl around its gated courtyard. The best shot at a glimpse of the lifeblood of the École des Beaux-Arts, however, is the Exhibition Hall at no. 13, quai Malaquais, where you can get a look at the painting, photography, and installation work of an exciting new generation of Parisian artistes. (14, r. Bonaparte, No. 13 at quai Malaquais. St-Germain-des-Prés. ☎ 01 47 03 50 00; www.ensba.fr. Tours by reservation; call ahead. Open Tu-Su 1-7pm. €4, students €2.50. 2 “open days” each year allow the public to peruse studios and teaching areas. Call for schedule and info.)

Odéon.  Cour du Commerce St-André, branching off bd. St-Germain to the north, is one of the most picturesque walking areas in the 6 ème , with cobblestone streets, age-old cafes (including Le Procope; see Food), and outdoor seating. Beyond the arch at the north end of the Cour du Commerce stands the Relais Odéon, a Belle Époque bistro whose stylishly painted exterior, decked with floral mosaics and a hanging sign, is a fine example of Art Nouveau. The doorway of no. 7, rue Mazarine, several blocks north, is decorated in the same Belle Époque style. Farther down this passageway, on the top floor of the building on the left, is the site where a clandestine Revolutionary-era press published Jean-Paul Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple. Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday in the bathtub of his home, which once stood at the spot where the cour meets rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. Just to the south of bd. St-Germain is the Carrefour de l’Odéon, a favorite Parisian hangout filled with sidewalk bistros and cafes that are a bit calmer than their counterparts on the bd. St-Germain, perhaps because their denizens are thinking and scribbling. (St-Germain-des-Prés.)

Pont Des Arts. The footbridge across from the Institut de France, appropriately called the Pont des Arts, is one of the most beautiful bridges in Paris. Celebrated by poets and artists for its delicate ironwork, its unparalleled views of the Seine, and its spiritual locus at the heart of France’s Academy of Arts and Letters, it was built as a toll bridge in 1803 and was the first bridge to be made of iron. On the day it opened, 65,000 Parisians paid to walk across it; today, it is less crowded, free, and perfect for a picnic dinner, a view of the sunset, and a little romance. The bridge is also occasional host to public art exhibits.

Café De Flore And Les Deux Magots. These two literary landmarks—once the hangouts of Brigitte Bardot, Pablo Picasso, and Albert Camus—are now sadly filled with crowds of tourists and businessmen willing to pay for the history with exorbitantly priced coffee (€4-7). While neither merits a culinary stop, the cafes offer plenty of opportunities for intellectual idolatry. Sartre composed his seminal “ L’Être et le Néant ” (“Being and Nothingness”) in Café de Flore, no doubt intertwined with lover Simone de Beauvoir in the upstairs Art Deco booth they shared. The Flore also distributes an annual literary prize for distinguished French language fiction, another vestigial tribute to its literary history. Not to be outdone, Les Deux Magots awards a much older annual award for ‘best novel,’ and boasts a cloistered area behind high hedges that was home to a legacy from Mallarmé to Hemingway. (See Food.)