II.1.2. SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS, RAMPART HEIR

"THEY CROSSED THE SEINE AND CHARLIE FELT THE

SUDDEN PROVINCIAL QUALITY  OF THE LEFT BANK..." 

-- Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1931

This is the passage where Fitzgerald

leaves the wealthy, Americanized area around the Hotel Ritz

to make Saint-Germain the disorienting setting for his protagonist's defeat.

MENU: 2.1.2. Saint-Germain, rampart heir

The left bank has always been less commercial and more intellectual than the right because far from the main artery, 

it was Church land... 

Crucifixion of the Parlement of Paris, toward 1450 / zoom 

King and saint in a field across the river from the Louvre, so at Saint-Germain. 

And because the city wall cut through it.

Results:

• Outlaws and Protestants live beyond the rampart

• The Church and the "Grandes Écoles" ("great schools")

• Intellectuals, cafés and the Occupation

• The Liberation and a brief golden age

• Hollywood's take

• Lasting change: Europe's capital of movies and jazz

• Brands attack, tradition holds on

• Art galleries' riches and traps

• Other galleries that do their work well

*    *    *

Next,

Outlaws and Protestants live beyond the rampart