Paris – The Fourth Arrondissement
Posted March 21, 2008 by:
Comments(0)The 4th arrondissement located on the Right Bank of the
Seine River is one of the smallest in Paris at slightly
over 0.6 square miles (1.6 square kilometers). Its
population is about thirty thousand but the district
provides more than forty thousand jobs. The Ile de la Cite
(Cite Island) was already inhabited in the First Century
B.C. by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii who gave their
name to the city. Our first stop is world-renown, tasty,
not very high in calories, and won’t cost you a lot of
money. It’s on the magnificent Ile St-Louis one of the two
Parisian islands in the Seine.
Berthillon makes great ice cream and has since 1954. It
believes in natural ingredients and flavorings and uses no
preservatives or any of that junk. It is usually closed
during the last two weeks of August.
Centre Georges Pompidou (Georges Pompidou Centre), often
called Beaubourg was built in 1971-1977 near Les Halles
(the Halles Market) and the Marais. It contains a library,
the Musee National d’Art Moderne (National Modern Art
Museum), a center for music and acoustic research, and an
industrial design center. You either love the building or
you hate it because of its very distinct (ugly)
architecture with pipes on the outside. Even if you can’t
stand this building you may enjoy the art museum with its
collection of painters including Kandinsky, Matisse, Miro,
and Picasso.
One can only imagine how hard it is to run the city of
Paris. Maybe that’s why its Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has
been in the same Fourth Arrondissement location since the
mid-Fourteenth Century. The present French Renaissance
structure was rebuilt in the 1870s and is said to be
inspired by castles in the Loire Valley. Its site was a
well-known gathering place, in particular for public
executions. The local specialty was burning heretics at the
stake.
In the early Sixteenth Century King Francis I decided
rebuild Paris’s city hall. At that time Paris was the
largest city in Europe and the entire Christian world.
Building the Renaissance city hall worthy of Paris took
about a century. During the French Revolution the city hall
lived up to its site’s history; a representative of the
ancien regime (pre-Revolutionary government) was killed
there the day that the Bastille was stormed. Several years
later on this same site the revolutionary leader Maximilien
Francois Marie Odenthalius Isidore de Robespierre usually
called Robespierre was shot in the jaw and his followers
were arrested.
Paris’s City Hall played a role in the revolution of 1870
and the Paris Commune of the following year; first it
became the revolutionary government headquarters and
subsequently was burnt to the ground when surrounded by
enemy troops. The rebuilt building has a split personality:
its exterior is a copy of the Sixteenth Century Renaissance
building but the interior reflects the luxury of the day,
the 1880s. Charles de Gaulle spoke from City Hall on that
great day of August 25, 1944 when Paris was liberated.
Etienne Marcel, the most important pre-mayor of the city
was lynched in 1358 by a crowd that felt that he wanted too
much power. And the current mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, the
first elected left-wing major of Paris since 1871 was
stabbed during a party open to the public. After recovering
he converted his private apartments to a nursery for the
children of municipal workers. Tell me, do you know of any
other City Hall with such a history?
The short Rue des Rosiers in the Marais is somewhat a
center of Paris’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe.
Jews have been living here for six hundred years when they
were expelled from Paris; at that time the Marais was
outside the city limits. As often when a street becomes
very popular it changes its character and Jewish butcher
shops and delicatessens are giving way to upscale fashion
houses. Be sure to visit the rue des Francs-Bourgeois and
its many fashion stores, one of the rare Paris streets that
is open on Sunday.
In the middle of the Twelfth Century, so the story goes,
Maurice de Sully, the Archbishop of Paris, unhappy with the
present cathedral had it demolished and sketched in the
dirt its replacement, Notre Dame de Paris, one of the most
beautiful churches in the world. Construction took almost
two centuries, and frankly was worth it. This French Gothic
church is located on the Ile de la Cite and is the seat of
the Archbishop of Paris. During the French Revolution, many
of its treasures were either destroyed or plundered. The
church interior was used as a warehouse for the storage of
forage and food. The statues of biblical kings of Judea
(thought to be kings of France) were beheaded. Many of
these heads were found during a 1977 excavation and are now
display in the Musee de Cluny located in the fifth
arrondissement. Notre Dame’s organ was been computerized,
requiring three local-area networks. If you like touring
churches, this district is home to several other historic
ones, but if you ask me none of them are in the same league
as Notre Dame de Paris.
Of course you don’t want to be in Paris without sampling
fine French wine and food. In my article I Love French Wine
and Food – An Alsace Pinot Noir I reviewed such a wine and
suggested a sample menu: Start with Flammekueche (Tart
stuffed with Bacon, Onions, Cream Cheese, and heavy Cream).
For your second course savor Coq-au-Riesling (Cock cooked
in Riesling wine). And as dessert indulge yourself with
Quetschelkueche (Plum Tart). Your Parisian sommelier (wine
steward) will be happy to suggest appropriate wines to
accompany each course. Riedel
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Levi Reiss has authored or co-authored ten books on
computers and the Internet, but he prefers drinking fine
Italian or other wine, accompanied by the right foods and
people. He knows about dieting but now eats and drinks what
he wants, in moderation. He teaches classes in computers at
an Ontario French-language community college. Visit his
Italian travel website http://www.travelitalytravel.com
which focuses on local wine and food.
Welcome back!
Tags: short breaks, Paris