Talking Location With Mary Fleming – PARIS (Place des Vosges)

22nd July 2024

#TalkingLocationWith … Mary Fleming, author of Civilisation Française – PARIS

Place des Vosges

My first visit is imprinted on my memory like a postcard. I was standing in the tree-lined square with its fountains, its statue of King Louis XIII and a playground, surrounded on four sides by the arcaded stone and brick buildings. Some of the façades were rundown, others recently restored, but either way, the place des Vosges struck a chord that resonated in me over the years and ultimately inspired the setting for my novel Civilisation Française.

This 17^th century square resonates with many people. Like a Greek temple, it adheres to a classical concept of beauty, an aesthetic harmony that soothes and moves the viewer. It’s partly the materials: red brick stitched with the yellow Paris limestone topped by the blue-grey slate rooftiles. But it’s also the regularity of the architecture. Each of the 36 buildings strongly resembles the other without being a cut-out copy. The proportions are stately and dignified without being pompous or overbearing. Surrounded on four sides by these noble buildings, the visitor feels sheltered from the hectic city beyond and under its rounded arcades, protected from the elements.

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Hard to believe, then, that this height of elegance began as a swamp, un marais, the word which gave its name to the Right Bank quartier where the place des Vosges is located. The area was settled in the 12^thcentury by religious orders. The boggy land that was good for their vegetable patches and fruit orchards. In the 17^th century the monasteries and convents were nosed out by the nobility who bought up their properties to be near the king. In 1605, Henri IV had begun constructing regal residences, the King’s Pavilion on one side and the Queen’s Pavilion across from it, the two buildings that set the tone for the hôtels particuliers (grand townhouses) that would fill in the space between the two Pavilions and become the place Royale, as the place des Vosges was called pre-Revolution. Though Henri was assassinated midway through the project, his son Louis XIII finished it in 1612.

For the next hundred years, the place des Vosges and its environs was where everyone who was anyone wanted to live. But by the early 18th century, with the reigning king Louis XIV having moved the court to Versailles, the nobility followed in his wake, seeking new sodden pastures to seize. They migrated west and across the Seine to another former swamp (thus displacing more nuns and monks). As for the place Royale, following the 1789 Revolution, it was renamed Vosges after the eastern Department of France that was the first to pay its taxes and to send soldiers to defend the new Revolutionary state.

Though illustrious people, most notably the author Victor Hugo, continued to reside on the square through the first half of the 19th century, the Marais then came to be known as the Jewish ghetto. It was a focal point for the notorious Rafle of July 1942, when Jews in the German-occupied city were rounded up by the French police and sent to concentration camps, most never to return. Post-War, the whole quartier was so old and decrepit there were plans to raze it completely. It was saved at the last minute by the 1962 André Malraux Law, which preserved this area and others of historical significance.

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Today the place des Vosges is ultra-chic again, even if only 15 years ago one of its townhouses was rundown and empty, a target for squat activists, thus giving me the idea for my novel. The building has since been bought by Xavier Niel, one of France’s wealthiest men and married to Delphine Arnault, daughter of the world’s wealthiest individual tout court.

The arcades that wrap around the square – they have been called the world’s first shopping mall – are still lined with boutiques. There is a Michelin three-star restaurant, l’Ambroisie, but also more modest eateries, such as le Café de Bourgogne that has been on the northwestern corner of the square since 1807. The Victor Hugo Museum, tucked in the opposite corner, has been recently renovated and now has its own courtyard café. Upstairs you can look around the author’s former apartment and get a view from the inside out.

I return to the square from time to time and not just to breathe in its beauty. It’s also to be reminded of its long, rich history, both its boom-and-bust times. Amidst the linden trees and splashing fountains, the place des Vosges remains a wonderful spot to relax, to reflect or to imagine a novel.

Mary Fleming was born in Chicago and has lived in France for many years. After working as a journalist and consultant, she turned to fiction and has written two other novels, Someone Else and The Art of Regret. Her bi-weekly photo-essay, A Paris-Perche Diary, tracks city and country (Normandy) life. Find her online at website: Mary Fleming Author, blog: A Paris PercheDiary, and Instagram: @flemingm6

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