Flâneries in Paris: Explore the Beaubourg District

This is the 30th in a series of walking tours highlighting the sites and stories of diverse districts of Paris.

The opening to the Rue Rambuteau – just around the corner from where I began my walk – “was blocked by a barricade of orange pumpkins in two rows, sprawling at their ease and swelling out their bellies. Here and there gleamed the varnished golden-brown of a basket of onions, the blood-red of a heap of tomatoes, the soft yellow of a display of cucumbers, and the deep mauve of aubergines.” 

This description from Émile Zola’s The Belly of Paris (1871) is of Beaubourg, one of the oldest quartiers in the city and it’s just one reminder of the area’s checkered past. The food markets which had operated since at least the 12th century were replaced in Zola’s time by Les Halles, a set of glass and cast-iron pavilions which became the city’s main food market for over a century.  The stand-out design of their day, they were eventually ripped down to make room for another shiny new edifice, the Centre Pompidou, whose glass frontage and zig-zagging colorful pipes made it the last word in architectural daring in the 1970s.

And in 2025 this building, which was President Georges Pompidou’s legacy to Paris, will close for a modernization program lasting nearly five years, so more change is coming. 

My walk through some of Beaubourg was a search for layers of history. My map told me it’s just 500 meters from my starting point, the piazza in front of the Centre Pompidou – its design a reference to Roman city-planning! – to the Châtelet metro station, opened in art nouveau splendor in August 1900 and now the central transit hub for all of Paris. Between the two, I found a rich array of interesting things, from a murdered renaissance king to a very 21st century mural referencing one of France’s most iconic 19th-century paintings. Oh, and I was introduced to “the most beautiful girls in Paris.” 

The Place Stravinsky, just behind the piazza, offered a jumble of sights. On one corner was a 19th-century brick building with its tiled sign still offering “municipal baths and showers,” a reminder that this had long been a poor area. Just past it was the rectangular “pond” built to provide a focal point in the 1980s and filled with a madcap array of colorful sculptures and water jets. A class or two of teenagers were picnicking around the edge, seemingly indifferent to such sights as a giant bright blue bowler hat floating on top of the glistening water. Just behind the students, in contrast to the glass, metal and plastic of the Centre Pompidou, the wall of an ancient church ran along the Rue du Cloître Saint-Merri.   

So old was the wall, that I was quite surprised to find, on rounding the corner, that St Martin-des-Champs is very much still a working church. The first thing I saw in the entrance was a defibrillator, soon followed by a wordle poster on which the words générosité, engagement, solidarité and respect sprang out in the largest print. In one corner was an art installation by the Moscow-born émigré artist Maxim Kanter: a modern take on a stained-glass window, its bright colors contrasting with the white figure of a dove. Around the edge were human figures, sketched in black and white, representing, said the accompanying text, a vast community of believers from any age: the lame, the old, the young, victims of violence, emigrants carrying their scant bundles of possessions. It was, somehow, both biblical and contemporary. 

Gold-framed pictures depicting the stations of the cross led me down to the back of the church where I found, quite unexpectedly, a marble plaque commemorating “les glorieuses victimes de 1792,” and the names of two priests from this church who had become victims of the revolution, murdered “for hatred of their faith.” As I read the names of Abbé Marie François Moufle and Abbé Pierre Jacques Vitalis, an elderly man passed quietly by, a mop and bucket in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other.

Just near the exit was a display of crucifixes, and among the brass and the ancient wood was a contemporary one, in bold primary colors. The message I got from Saint Martin-des-Champs was one of an age-old faith being continually refreshed for our times. 

The Rue Saint-Martin, narrow and cobbled, led into the Rue Le Boucher, suddenly not so medieval in feel because workmen were drilling the road noisily. As I tried to imagine the butchers of old plying their trade there, I spotted something surprising. High up on a wall was a mural, inspired by the Delacroix painting of Liberty Leading the People, but with an added slogan: Vive la résistance Ukrainienne. Below it was a picture of a young woman rising up like Marianne, but with a blue and yellow flag instead of a tricolore. Pausing to cross the busy Boulevard de Sébastopol, I wondered if it was a coincidence that this defiant poster was right next to the road named after Crimea’s best-known city. I imagine not.   

In Rue Berger, one building stood out. The pinkness of the little restaurant, Le Tiki Rose, could not be ignored. Shop front, inside walls, tables, wrought iron chairs, serviettes were all deep pink, relieved only by gold trim around the table edges and chunky golden cutlery. With a brunch-style menu offering “toasts” and “Pokés’” that wouldn’t break the bank, who could resist? Not I. My avocado pink toast was indeed rose in hue, spread with beetroot-flavored hummus and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.

While enjoying it, I perused the menu and learned that the tiki is, in Polynesian culture, a semi-human, semi-god creature from whom all mankind is believed to be descended. Learning this unexpected fact in such surroundings just added to my pleasure.   

I knew that the Fontaine des Innocents, another relic of old Paris, had been left intact when the developers demolished much of this area in the 1970s. Erected in 1549 to mark the “royal entrance” into Paris of Henri II and Catherine Medici after the new king’s coronation at Reims, it was named after the nearby Church of the Holy Innocents. The graveyard was one of the city’s most used, until Louis XVI, concerned that it was a health risk, ordered its closure in 1786 and all the bodies were moved to the catacombs. The fountain was left in place and became a focal point of the market which grew up around it. In fact, when the famous arcades of Les Halles were built in the mid-19th century, the fountain was declared a monument historique. 

Unfortunately, I arrived to find it being restored, surrounded by 6-foot-high billboards, obscuring the view. The original renaissance bas-reliefs of nymphs, tritons, dolphins and seahorses had been removed to workshops to be cleaned, but at least some were back in place. As I stood on tiptoe, angling my camera to try and capture some of their images, a passer-by stopped to watch. “You are photographing the sculptures?” he asked, in French, “do you know that we call them les plus belles filles de Paris?.”

 I didn’t, but had to agree the yes, the nymphs are exquisitely beautiful.  I have since seen photographs of the finished result, with the fountain running and the newly cleaned stonework beautifully lit against a night sky. I’ll definitely go back for a look.   

In the Rue de la Ferronerie I saw one of those fascinating histoire de Paris plaques which I’ve learned always to stop and read. It recounted the violent end met on that exact spot by Henri IV, the man whom many call France’s most popular king. On May 14th 1610, Henri set out from the Louvre and was driven along this road – then only about 12 feet wide – when his driver was forced to stop because two carts were causing a blockage.  Just at that moment, François Ravaillac, a religious fanatic, leapt up at the king’s carriage, leaned in and stabbed him. Henri was taken back to the Louvre where he died of his wounds, leaving his wife, Marie de Medici, to rule as regent until their 9-year-old son, the future Louis XIII, came of age. 

Just near the Rue de la Ferronerie is one of Châtelet-les-Halle’s 19 exits. This is surely the city’s most confusing underground station? Even the Sortir à Paris website comments that being down in its midst can feel like being “in a giant escape game that you can’t get out of.” But it too is part of the city’s history. It brought radical change to Paris in 1900 as one of the earliest metro stations to open and in the 1970s the creation of its RER lines meant demolishing some of the ancient streets above ground. To go looking for history in the streets of Paris, as I had just done, is to appreciate how much the city changes in every new era, but still remains Paris. Or, to reinvent a well-known phrase, plus ça change, plus c’est Paris.