Can you imagine a neighborhood in Boston or London called "The Swamp" becoming a trendy hangout? Unlikely – but nothing is predictable in Le Marais, where fur-draped society ladies shop alongside leather-clad biker boys, and cars scramble to park alongside narrow sidewalks built back when a traffic jam meant that a wagon’s wheel was stuck between two cobblestones. The Marais has been on a roller-coaster ride of development and decay for over a thousand years.
A millennium ago, the only living creatures in the Marais were frogs, insects, and the birds that preyed upon them. By the 1200s, the swamp had been drained, and farms built up in its place. Modest homesteads were joined by convents throughout the 12th and 13th centuries. A thriving Jewish community brought culture and greater population to the district.
King Charles V "discovered" this bustling suburb and extended the Paris city wall 1367 to include the Marais. He built the first of what would be many "hotels", or private mansions, there: the Hotel St.-Paul. Subsequent kings preferred the Hotel des Tournelles, including frequent visitor Henri II. In the mid-1500s, Henri built a jousting pavilion in an empty meadow, and the wealthy nobles of his court flocked to the Marais. Henri’s unfortunate death in a jousting accident deflated the real estate bubble that might have been forming as a result of his visits - but two Henris and one century later, Henri IV rediscovered the Marais and constructed a square called the Place Royal, over the former jousting field. Adjoining the square - now the famous Place des Vosges – he built a royal palace.
Once again, the aristocracy followed suit. They built luxurious homes on and around the blush-hued stones of the pavilion. Intellectual luminaries like Voltaire and Moliere frequented the salons of notable residents like Cardinal Richelieu and Madame de Sévigné. The Marais was the trendiest address in le tout Paris. But after Henri IV’s assassination, Versailles became the center of aristocratic life - and then the French Revolution made any sort of aristocratic life whatsoever a dicey proposition. The now unfashionable Hotels were sold to the bourgeoisie. Small businesses and craftsmen quickly filled the gaps. Immigrants moved in, and the Jewish community, ever present, began to flourish again.
It wasn’t until 1800 that the Place Royale received its modern name of Place des Vosges. Napoleon named it in honor of the province of Vosges, the winner of a contest to see which French province would pay their taxes the fastest!
By the 1960s, the area had slid precipitously into decline. Once grand streets and buildings were in danger of falling to pieces. The government came to the rescue, providing funding for restoration and passing laws prohibiting the demolition of historical buildings. And so began the Marais’ next resurgence.
In 1988, a much younger me stepped into the Place des Vosges for the first time. It was a chilly January afternoon, and I was headed for Number 6, the former home of Victor Hugo, now a museum dedicated to his life and works. I was lucky enough to have secured an internship there, where I spent winter afternoons sorting through Hugo’s letters to his daughter as we prepared the correspondence for publication. It was impossible not to succumb to the feeling of having stepped through a time machine into the 17th century when I walked under the carefully pruned corridor of trees and down the quiet, beautifully preserved arcades.
What the square was like when Hugo lived there from 1832-1848, I wondered? When writer’s block gripped his mind, did he stare out the window, leaning against his tall writing desk (trivia fact: Hugo wrote standing up) and congratulate himself for having managed to squeeze his family of 6 into this small, but peaceful hideaway in the oldest neighborhood in Paris? I was certain that Hugo must have felt the same way about his neighborhood that I did: like living in a Paris that time forgot.
The Marais was grittier back then; ethnically tense and raw around the edges, not pointedly multi-culti and carefully polished, as it often seems today. But many of the same neighborhood institutions that I visited in the ‘80s are still greeting tourists and locals alike today, like the timeless Mariage Frères tea room, and the Musée Picasso, situated in the immaculately preserved Hotel Salé. Built in 1656, it hosts the largest collection of Picasso’s works in the world, because when he died in 1973, Picasso’s heirs donated countless works of art to the state in lieu of payment of millions of dollars in inheritance taxes.
So how did we find this latest iteration of the Marais? More than ever, it is a complex and flavorful stew of tradition and trends, antiquities and "affordable chic." When we wanted to shop, dine, browse, or just hang out, we found a broad range of options.
Living in the Marais, even just for a week, was memorable. Our rented apartment was located on the rue des Rosiers, a narrow medieval street that winds like a ribbon through the center of the Marais. Day and night, people trickle up and down the street. Residents slip through ancient wooden doors, revealing tantalizing glimpses of serene courtyards and hotel particuliers within. Window shoppers block the way, pausing to admire intricate displays. Sloe-eyed slouching teens linger at tiny marble-topped tables under canopies of tree branches, dangling cigarettes and savoring their espressos. Nightclub doors open briefly to spew out stumbling, singing revelers on their way to another underground boite.
Throughout the week we zipped in and out of the apartment, sometimes en masse and often in smaller groups: some headed for the Roland Garros tennis tournament, others to visit friends, or tour a museum. Before long our borrowed apartment felt like home, and our borrowed identities of Parisian ladies of leisure became second nature. At home waited crying children, alarm clocks, unpaid bills. But in our chic little apartment, glasses of red wine in hand, surrounded by friends, we had taken the ultimate vacation: from ourselves.
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