OUTLAWS AND PROTESTANTS LIVE BEYOND THE RAMPART

BEGGARS, THIEVES AND MARGINALS LIVE OUTSIDE THE WALL, WHERE AUTHORITIES DO NOT VENTURE

In the 16th century, Protestants join them.

--  Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, pastor and  historian of Paris,

gave some of the information here.

   The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, 1854 ed.

Saint-Germain must have resembled this "court of miracles."

        Adapted from a map of Paris in 1615 / zoom

 

• They sang hymns in the fields of Saint-Germain and pastors' first meeting took place in that "Little Geneva," a reference to Calvin's republic.

• Many were craftspeople, and living outside the city let them avoid guilds' regulations (History from fresh perspectives says more).

• Protestantism continued in Saint-Germain despite Louis XIV's prohibition (in 1684), to avoid clashing with the Scandinavians whose embassies were located there.  

# # #

Those Protestants are a reason for Saint-Germain's intellectuality because:

• Personal responsibility for salvation, their core belief, implies meditating on the Bible and so being able to read it, at a time when printing made books available.

• Here a massacre interrupts a figure as he reads — outside a rampart:

            Expulsion of the Protestants of Toulouse by Antoine Rivalz, toward 1725 / zoom

• That emphasis on meditation and literacy fit the rising craftspeople, shopkeepers and lawyers who made up the mass of 16th-century Protestants in France. Sedentary, urban and obliged to keep accounts, they were usually literate.

# # #

They left the superb Library of the history of Protestantism:

(Built in 1877)

The portrait of the first Protestant military chief (Admiral Coligny) leans against books, and a class led by the historian mentioned above.

Photo by a parent of the little boy

The director is showing16th-century documents to German Calvinists, descendants of French Protestants who fled the kingdom when their faith was outlawed. One record is the Bible of Henri IV, who had to abjure his Protestant belief.

#  #  #

Catholics too explain Saint-Germain's intellectuality, since the Church controlled the left bank.

•  Outside the wall and north of Protestant territory was the powerful abbey of Saint-Germain. Only the tower below is left.

Zoom

  Conference room at 4 place de Saint-Germain du Prés; access thanks to Mr. Payen-Appenzeller

• Within the wall was the Sorbonne University, where much of Europe's clergy was trained

Zoom

A 15th-century Sorbonne theology class

# # #

The Sorbonne is still at the heart of the French university system and the country's great schools cluster around it 

• The prestigious Lycée [high school] Saint-Louis, which Jesuits founded in the 16th century to train the sons of the elite, is across the boulevard and the Schools of Law and Medicine are steps away.

• The École Normale Supérieur, the École des Sciences Politiques, the Faculté de Jussieu and the Collège de France are in the neighborhood.

•  The École Polytechnique and École Centrale were there until moved to the suburbs (in 1964 and 2015 respectively).

The bus stop next to the Sorbonne

 is called "Les Écoles" (The Schools).

*    *    *

Next,

A neighborhood that intellectuality made famous