"LES HALLES:"* THE MARKET THE KING ESTABLISHES NEXT TO THE TRADE ROUTE, ADJOINING THE CEMETERY
(IN 1135)
*An "halles" is a covered market.
It absorbs that of the cemetery.
(In the 1850s)
View of the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, anonymous, 1814 / zoom
Knocked-over tombstones: The church is demolished just before the Revolution, but that upheaval and Napoleon's wars put off eliminating the cemetery until the 1820's.
The Holy Innocents' Market and Fountain by John James Chalon, 1822 / zoom
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Internet, source not said |
It was one of the most colorful parts of Paris ...
...and the setting for a famous American movie, which begins with a bistro owner saying with a French accent, "Welcome to Paris! The Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, the bridges of the Seine, Montmartre. But to find the real Paris, you must come to Les Halles, the wholesale market, the stomach of Paris, and to its busiest street, the rue Casanova, a place of passion, friendship, desire and death, everything that makes life worth living..." 
  A visitor recalls "I came here when I was 16 with a friend. We didn't know where we were, but we finally found a room that was so small only one of us could sleep at one time. He went to sleep and I went out to look around. I was astonished to come upon crowds of people in the middle of the night, drunks, prostitutes, men unloading cabbages. I can't believe this is the same place." |
-- Bill Wright
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Too small for the growing city, it is moved to a suburb. Its unique pavillons are torn down...
(In 1970)
Video by photographer Jean-Claude Gautrand / zoom
A park and an underground mall replace them.
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| Les Halles now / zoom |
# # #
We regret the loss of a place that pulsed with energy,
but the huge space at the city's heart is a gift
of the cemetery and its markets:
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| © Philippe Guignard |
A Scene at the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris by Jean-Claude Tardieu, early 19th century / zoom
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