I Love Touring Paris - The Third Arrondissement
The 3rd arrondissement located on the right bank of the Seine River is second smallest of Paris’s twenty districts. It contains the northern, relatively quiet part of the medieval district of Le Marais (The Marsh) while the 4th arrondissement contains the livelier southern part. Paris’s oldest surviving private house dating back to 1407 is located at 51 rue de Montmorency. One of its owners claimed to have made a Philosopher’s stone transforming lead into gold as well as having achieved immortality along with his wife (I hope that they get along well) but neither claim has been verified. What has been verified is that this district occupies less than one half a square mile (about 1.2 square kilometers) making it the second smallest arrondissement in the city. Its population is about 35 thousand and the district is home to about 30 thousand jobs.
The Marais was marshland first cleared in the Twelfth Century. In the Sixteenth Century the aristocracy built beautiful residences including the Place Royale, subsequently named la Place des Vosges built for Henri IV in 1605. The Marais took a hit when the court moved to Versailles. On the other hand this area was not highly affected by Baron Haussmann’s urban redevelopment. In 1969, France’s first Minister of Culture Andre Malraux made the Marais the first protected sector making it harder to redevelop buildings.
The Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts) is a government supported school devoted to scientific and industrial education and research. Founded during the French Revolution, CNAM’s original mission was collecting scientific instruments and inventions. Its mission has changed but the conservatory includes a sizeable inventions museum Musee des Arts et Metiers (Arts and Trades Museum) open to the general public. CNAM’s many night-school offerings include a very respectable night-school engineering program.
The Hotel de Soubise is a city mansion located at 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois built for a prince during the early Eighteenth Century on the site of a Fourteenth Century manor house. Napoleon turned this mansion into a state property that now includes the Musee de l’Histoire de France (Museum of French History) and part of the French National Archives.
The Temple, located in the third and forth arrondissements, is a fortress whose construction started in the mid-Thirteenth Century. During the French Revolution the Temple was transformed into a prison hosting the French royal family including King Louis XVI, the child Louis XVII, and Marie Antoinette. Because of royalist pilgrimages, the Temple was destroyed in several stages during the Nineteenth Century. Now only the name remains, in a subway station, a major city street, and the name of the district itself. Read more »
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Posted September 30, 2008 
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