Place des Vosges
Take a gentle stroll between the place du Chatelet and place des Vosges in Paris, to enjoy a spot of shopping, or discover local heritage.. in fact, everything is possible as long as you know how to juggle different styles. Formerly known as the “place Royale”, this square has remained intact – miraculously so – since it was commissioned by Henry IV in 1604. The thirty- six townhouses have constituted a perfect symmetry from the day they were built, with their brick facades, deep-pitched slate roofs and the ground floor made up of a gallery of arcades for walking.
Add a few musketeers and you’d think you were in a swashbuckling adventure film … or back to the splendid carrousel that inaugurated the square in 1612 to celebrate the wedding of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. Since then, each house has boasted a rich history of art, literature and many a famous name. Madame de Sevigne was born at the Hotel de Coulanges; Cardinal Richelieu, Theophile Gautier, Alphonse Daudet, and the tragic actress Rachel, also lives there, as well as Victor Hugo, from 1832 to 1848. Transformed into a museum, his apartment in the Hotel de Rohan-Guemenee reveals the story of his life, from the antechamber of his youth to his dead bed, not forgetting a visit to the Chinese salon, where he played out his love affair with Juliette Drouet. If you look closely, you’ll see their initials in trompe-l’oeil.
