The Marais (Le Marais ; "the marsh") is a historic district in

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 ...

, France. Having once been an aristocratic district, it is home to many buildings of historic and architectural importance. It spreads across parts of the

3rd Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * H ...

and 4th

arrondissement An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands. Europe France The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements ...

s in Paris on the

Rive Droite The Rive Droite (, ''Right Bank'') is most commonly associated with the river Seine in central Paris. Here, the river flows roughly westwards, cutting the city into two parts. When facing downstream, the northern bank is to the right, and the so ...

, or Right Bank, of 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 ...

. After a long period of decay the district has undergone a transformation in recent years and is now once again among the more fashionable areas of the city.

History

Paris aristocratic district

In 1240, the

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

built a fortified church just outside the walls of Paris, in the northern part of the Marais. The

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

turned this district into an attractive area which became known as the Temple Quarter, and many religious institutions were built nearby: the

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Angl ...

s des Blancs-Manteaux, de Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie and des Carmes-Billettes, as well as the church of Sainte-Catherine-du-Val-des-Écoliers. During the mid-13th century,

Charles I of Anjou Charles I (early 1226/12277 January 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou, was a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the second House of Anjou. He was Count of Provence (1246–85) and Forcalquier (1246–48, 1256–85) i ...

, King of Naples and Sicily, and brother of King

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the d ...

built his residence near the current n°7 rue de Sévigné. In 1361 the King Charles V built a mansion known as the

Hôtel Saint-Pol The Hôtel Saint-Pol was a royal residence begun in 1360 by Charles V of France on the ruins of a building constructed by Louis IX. It was used by Charles V and Charles VI. Located on the Right Bank, to the northwest of the Quartier de l'Arsenal ...

, in which the Royal Court settled during his reign as well as his son's. From that time to the 17th century and especially after the Royal Square (''Place Royale'', current ''

place des Vosges The Place des Vosges (), originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France. It is located in the '' Marais'' district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionabl ...

'') was designed under King Henri IV of France in 1605, the Marais was the favored place of residence for the French nobility. Among the many urban mansions— hôtels particuliers, in French—they built there were the

Hôtel de Sens The Hôtel de Sens () or Hôtel des archevêques de Sens is a 16th-century ''hôtel particulier'', or private mansion, in the Marais, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. It nowadays houses the . History The ''hôtel'' was built to serv ...

, the

Hôtel de Sully The Hôtel de Sully is a Louis XIII style ''hôtel particulier'', or private mansion, located at 62 rue Saint-Antoine in the Marais, IV arrondissement, Paris, France. Built at the beginning of the 17th century, it is nowadays the seat of the Cen ...

, the Hôtel de Beauvais, the Hôtel Carnavalet, the Hôtel de Guénégaud and the Hôtel de Soubise. During the late 18th century, the district was no longer considered the most fashionable district for the nobility, yet it still kept its reputation of being an aristocratic area. By that time, only minor nobles and a few higher ranking nobles, such as the

Prince de Soubise Within the French nobility, the title of "Prince of Soubise" was created in 1667 when the '' sirerie'' of Soubise, Charente-Maritime was raised to a principality for the cadet branch of the House of Rohan. The first prince was François de Rohan (1 ...

, lived there. The

Place des Vosges The Place des Vosges (), originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France. It is located in the '' Marais'' district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionabl ...

remained a place for nobles to meet. The district fell into disrepair after the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

and was abandoned by the nobility completely. It would remain unfashionable until the late 20th century.

Jewish community

People

After the French Revolution, the district was no longer the aristocratic district it had been during the 17th and 18th centuries. Because of this, the district became a popular and active commercial area, hosting one of Paris' main Jewish communities. At the end of the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th, the district around the rue des Rosiers, referred to as the " Pletzl", welcomed many Eastern European Jews (

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

) who reinforced the district's clothing specialization. During World War II the Jewish community was targeted by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

who were occupying France. As of today, the rue des Rosiers remains a major center of the Paris Jewish community, which has made a comeback since the 1990s. Public notices announce Jewish events, bookshops specialize in Jewish books, and numerous restaurants and other outlets sell

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

food.

Institutions

The

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...

on 10 rue Pavée is adjacent to the rue des Rosiers.It was designed in 1913 by Art Nouveau architect

Hector Guimard Hector Guimard (, 10 March 1867 – 20 May 1942) was a French architect and designer, and a prominent figure of the Art Nouveau style. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Beranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building ...

, who designed several Paris Metro stations. The Marais houses the Museum of Jewish Art and History, the largest French museum of Jewish art and history. The museum conveys the extensive history and culture of Jews in Europe and North Africa from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.

Terrorist attack

In 1982, Palestinian extremists murdered 6 people and injured 22 at a Jewish restaurant in the Marais, Chez Jo Goldenberg, an attack which evidenced ties to the Abu Nidal Organization.

Post-war rehabilitation

By the 1950s, the district had become a working-class area and most of its architectural masterpieces were in a state of neglect. In 1964, General de Gaulle's Culture Minister, Andre Malraux, made the Marais the first ''secteur sauvegardé'' (literally translated as ''safeguarded sector''). That was meant to protect and conserve places deemed to be of special cultural significance. In the following decades, the government and the city led an active restoration and Rehabilitation Policy. The main hôtels particuliers have been restored and turned into museums: the Hôtel Salé hosts the Picasso Museum, the Hôtel Carnavalet hosts the Paris Historical Museum, the Hôtel Donon hosts the Cognacq-Jay Museum, the

Hôtel de Saint-Aignan The Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, originally the Hôtel d'Avaux, is a 17th-century ''hôtel particulier'', located at 71 Rue de Temple, in the 3rd arrondissement and the Marais district of Paris. It was constructed 1644–1650 to the designs of the a ...

hosts the

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme or mahJ (English: "Museum of Jewish Art and History") is the largest French museum of Jewish art and history. It is located in the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan in the Marais district in Paris. The museum con ...

. The site of Beaubourg, the western part of Marais, was chosen for the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, France's national Museum of Modern Art, which is widely considered one of the world's most important cultural institutions. The building was completed in 1977 with advanced modern architectural features by

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2 ...

and

Richard Rogers Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (23 July 1933 – 18 December 2021) was a British architect noted for his modernist and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designs in high-tech architecture. He was a senior partner a ...

Today's Marais

The Marais is now one of Paris' most frequented localities for art galleries. Following its restoration, the Marais has become a popular and culture-defining district, home to many upscale restaurants, fashion houses, and galleries. The Marais is also known for its Chinese community. The community began to form during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. At that time, France needed workers on the home front to perform the duties previously filled by men who were now soldiers on the front lines. China sent a few thousand of its citizens, on the condition that they would not take part in the war. After the 1918 Allied victory, some of them stayed in Paris, living around the current rue au Maire. Today, most work in jewellery and leather-related products. The Marais' Chinese community has settled in the north of the district, particularly in the surrounding of Place de la République. Next to it, on the Rue du Temple, is the Chinese Church of Paris. Other features of the neighborhood include the

Musée Picasso :''This article refers to the museum in Paris. There are a number of other Picasso museums.'' The Musée Picasso ( en, Picasso Museum) is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé ( en, Salé Hall) in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district ...

, the house of

Nicolas Flamel Nicolas Flamel (; 1330 – 22 March 1418) was a French scribe and manuscript-seller. After his death, Flamel developed a reputation as an alchemist believed to have created and discovered the philosopher's stone and to have thereby achieved im ...

, the

Musée Cognacq-Jay The Musée Cognacq-Jay ( en, Cognacq-Jay Museum) is a museum located in the Hôtel Donon in the 3rd arrondissement at 8 rue Elzévir, Paris, France. It is open daily except Monday; admission is free. The nearest Metro stations are Saint-Pau ...

, and the Musée Carnavalet.

LGBT culture

The Marais became a center of

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

culture, beginning in the 1980s. Florence Tamagne, author of ''Paris: 'Resting on its Laurels'?'', wrote that the Marais "is less a 'village' where one lives and works than an entrance to a pleasure area" and that this differentiates it from Anglo-American

gay villages ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

.Tamagne, Florence (2014). "Paris: 'Resting on its Laurels'?" (Chapter 12). In: Evans, Jennifer V. and Matt Cook. ''Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Europe since 1945,'' pp. 240, 250, London, ENG:

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

, , 9781441148407, se
240
an

accessed 15 November 2015. Tamagne added that like US gay villages, the Marais has "an emphasis on 'commercialism, gay pride and coming-out of the closet'".''Le Dépôt'', one of the largest cruising bars in Europe as of 2014 (per Tamagne), is in the Marais area. File:Le Marais 01.JPG, Gay village in Le Marais File:Le Marais 02.JPG

Notable residents

* Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully^† * Urbain de Maillé-Brézé^† * Armand de Vignerot du Plessis^† * Princes of Rohan Soubise * Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet^† *

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696), also widely known as Madame de Sévigné or Mme de Sévigné, was a French aristocrat, remembered for her letter-writing. Most of her letters, celebrated for ...

^† *

Maximilien Robespierre Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Esta ...

^† *

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

^† *

John Galliano John Charles Galliano (born 28 November 1960) is a British fashion designer from Gibraltar. He was the creative director of his eponymous label John Galliano and French fashion houses Givenchy and Dior. Since 2014, Galliano has been the crea ...

* Jacques Frémontier^† * Jack Lang * Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair *

Jim Morrison James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer, poet and songwriter who was the lead vocalist of the rock band the Doors. Due to his wild personality, poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, unpredictable and err ...

^†

Places and monuments of note

* National Archives, including the Hôtel de Soubise and Hôtel de Rohan * Carnavalet Museum * Church Notre-Dame-des-Blancs-Manteaux * Church of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais * Church Saint-Merri * Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs * Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis * Hôtel d'Angoulême Lamoignon (housing the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris and the Hôtel-Lamoignon - Mark Ashton Garden. * Hôtel d'Aumont * Hôtel de Beauvais *

, including the home of

and Café Ma Bourgogne * Maison européenne de la photographie in the Hôtel de Camtobre (1706) *

Mémorial de la Shoah Mémorial de la Shoah is the The Holocaust, Holocaust museum in Paris, France. The memorial is in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, in the Le Marais, Marais district, which had a large Jewish population at the beginning of World War II. The memo ...

, including the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr and the

CDJC The Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation is an independent French organization founded by Isaac Schneersohn in 1943 in the town of Grenoble, France during the Second World War to preserve the evidence of Nazi war crimes for future gener ...

(housed in the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan) * Musée des Arts et Métiers *

* Place des Émeutes-de-Stonewall (Stonewall riots square) * Place Harvey Milk * Pletzl, the historic Jewish quarter * Rosiers – Joseph Migneret Garden * Temple du Marais

Gallery

File:Jo Goldenberg restaurant, Paris 12 June 2005.jpg, Jo Goldenberg's Jewish delicatessen (now defunct) on the rue des Rosiers; site of the

Goldenberg restaurant attack The Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant attack was a bombing and shooting attack on a Jewish restaurant in the Parisien district of Marais on 9 August 1982 carried out by the Palestinian militant Abu Nidal Organization, a group that splintered fr ...

File:Chez Marianne (Le Marais Paris) 01.jpg, Chez Marianne, a Jewish restaurant in Le Marais File:Pletzl rue Caron Restaurant Yiddish Pitchi poi.jpg, Restaurant Pitchi Poï in the predominantly Jewish Pletzl quarter File:Pletzl rue des Rosiers Boulangerie Juive.jpg, Murciano Jewish bakery in the rue des Rosiers File:Hotel-de-Sens-DSC 8075.jpg, Hôtel de Sens File:Hotel-Soubise-rue-des-Franc.jpg, Hôtel Soubise File:Maison-de-Jean-Herouet-54-r.jpg, Maison de Jean Herouet File:Hotel-d'Almeras-30-rue-des-.jpg, Entrance of l'Hôtel d'Almeras File:P1000705 Paris IV Eglise Saint-Gervais nef centrale reductwk.JPG, Interior of Saint-Gervais-et-Saint-Protais Church File:Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, façade; et voiture Velib'.JPG, Saint-Paul Saint-Louis Church File:Musée Picasso Paris coté cour.jpg, Hôtel Salé (Picasso Museum) File:Paris-place-des-vosges.jpg, Place des Vosges File:Hôtel de Beauvais salle voûtée au sous-sol.jpg, Medieval cellar of the Hôtel de Beauvais File:Demeures médiévales - Paris (France).JPG, Medieval houses in rue Miron File:Salle de lecture vue d'ensemble.jpg, Reading room in the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (City of Paris History Library) File:Paris rue aubriot.jpg, View of rue Aubriot File:Temple Sainte-Marie rue Saint-Antoine 4.jpg, Temple du Marais, a Protestant church File:P1020669 Paris III Hôtel de Saint-Aignan Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaisme rwk.JPG, Courtyard of the Hotel de Saint-Aignan, which houses the

References

External links

Article about the Marais as the gay neighbourhood of Paris

ParisMarais.com: the official guide, partner of the Paris Tourist Office

Le Marais photos

Photographs
My Gay Paris
The latest news on Paris and the Marais with a gay perspective {{Use dmy dates, date=December 2020 * 3rd arrondissement of Paris 4th arrondissement of Paris Marais, le Marais, le Entertainment districts in France Gay villages in France Marais, le Marais, le LGBT culture in Paris Tourist attractions in Paris

History

Paris aristocratic district

Jewish community

People

Institutions

Terrorist attack

Post-war rehabilitation

Today's Marais

LGBT culture

Notable residents

Places and monuments of note

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links