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| Orestes Fasting |
My trip to Paris (+pictures!)At the end of July I ended a month-long stay in France by going to Paris for a week, and of course I visited all the Les Mis-related locations I could get my hands on. I'm NOT going to post the pictures in the thread, because there are at least a hundred of them and they're big, but all the LM-related ones will be linked to.Before I went to Paris, though, I spent a day in Montreuil-sur-Mer, which is now an incredibly cute little northern town right down to the cobblestone streets and flowers in every window. They have their own local adaptation of the novel, which I went to see that night. Here's the album with all the Montreuil photos. Most of the ones that aren't of random streets or buildings are of the citadel or the ramparts, which completely encircle the upper city. (The upper city is a well-fortified old garrison town; the lower city is outside the ramparts on the river Canche.) Be sure to check out the second page, which includes a photo of--I kid you not--a lingerie shop called Fantine's Undergarments. And then we have the Paris pictures. Be warned, most of these are of places mentioned in the novel and have no relation to anything in the musical. No. 50, Blvd de l'H�pital. Where the Gorbeau tenement would have been, had it existed. Place Edmond-Rostand, formerly the Place Saint-Michel, home of the Caf� Musain. (Or the ABC Caf�, if that's your style.) Yes, that is a McDonald's where Musain would have been--oh, how the mighty have fallen. Place de la Bastille--aside from any revolutionary significance it has, this was the site of Napoleon's elephant, where Gavroche stayed with his two brothers. July Column; top of the July Column; plaque commemorating the fall of the Bastille. Rue Th�nard. Not mentioned in the book, I'm just easily amused. Rue Oudinot, formerly the rue Plumet. View down the street. There's no garden anymore, just a couple of trees outside an ugly apartment building. Rue du Champ de l'Alouette. Named after the once-existent Field of the Lark, which has now been replaced by more ugly buildings. Though if you look down the street, the trees kinda sorta look like they could be a field. Maybe. Rue des Archives. There's a plaque on no. 40 explaining that it was once the rue de l'Homme-Arm�. Valjean's old residence was on the other side of the street. No. 6, rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, where M. Gillenormand lived. Only the buildings at the end of the street look properly bourgeois nowadays. Rue de la Verrerie. Marius lived with Courfeyrac in No. 16 for a while. There's now a trendy wine bar on the ground floor which Courfeyrac would undoubtedly have approved of. View down the street; no. 16 is on the left at the far end. 11, rue de S�vign�. Somewhere around here, Th�nardier escaped from La Force. �glise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, where Marius married Cosette. Link takes you to a small gallery. Another gallery, this one of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Pont Notre-Dame + quay, taken from the Right Bank side of the Pont-au-Change. Pont-au-Change taken from the quay on the Cit� side. This is the closest I have of a photo of where Javert jumped, although it was actually off to the right, closer to the Pont Notre-Dame. There's still a Prefecture of Police right there, probably the very same one where Javert handed in his resignation, so to speak. A boat named Gavroche. A gallery of my pictures from the Mus�e des �gouts, the Paris Sewer Museum. Most of them are maps of 1830s Paris, the 19th century sewer system, the public wells and fountains, and other things that probably aren't too interesting for you all, but there are a few shots of the sewers as well. And check out the second picture, which is a map of the route Valjean took with Marius through the sewers. Okay, and now we have the pictures of the site of the barricade. Trying to tell you how these all fit together would be a headache, so I'll just give you a map of what the place looked like in 1832 and add that the rue de la Chanverrerie is now the rue Rambuteau, its intersection with the rue Mond�tour is no longer a dead end, the block between the rue Mond�tour and the rue Saint-Denis has been cut in half by a new street, and the next street up after the rue de la Grande Truanderie is the rue du Cygne. Intersection of the rue Saint-Denis and the rue Rambuteau. View down the rue Rambuteau from the rue Saint-Denis. The barricade would have been about where that scaffolding on the right is now. View of the rue Rambuteau from the rue Mond�tour. If one of the combatants had stood on top of the barricade, this would have been the view. Rue Mond�tour street sign. View of the rue Mond�tour from the rue Rambuteau. Rue des Pr�cheurs. The five revolutionaries who escaped in National Guard uniforms did so in this direction. Rue de la Grande Truanderie street sign. Rue de la Grande Truanderie viewed from the rue Mond�tour. This is about where Eponine died. Rue du Cygne--street sign, view from the rue Mond�tour. Rue Saint-Denis, from the rue du Cygne. Montfermeil photo gallery. Some pictures of the Fontaine Jean Valjean, and the arboretum newly built on the site of the Parc Jean Valjean. And a poster I saw on a bus for their Spectacle Son et Lumi�re based on the book. |
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| Quique |
Ahhh. That's sooo cool. So lucky! 
What beautiful towns. Who did you go with? I was in NYC at the same time watching a faux Paris and other towns on the Broadhurst stage and you were there seeing the real thing! I need to catch up, lol. Looks like you had a great time. Gotta love that Fantine undie and that Gavroche store, hehehe. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
I was by myself for the most part. I met a couple friends in Paris for the first few days, but in Montreuil-sur-Mer and the remainder of my Paris week I was on my own. Which I actually preferred, because my friends and I didn't exactly agree on what constituted acceptable tourist activities. *g* They thought I was nuts for doing the Sewer Museum, and dragged me up the stairs of the Tour Eiffel despite my fear of heights and general lack of interest. 
Random thought about the whole trip: Les Mis occupies a very different place in the French collective unconscious than the American or English one. The English awareness of LM is dominated by the musical and its emphasis on Eponine and Javert and Enjolras, who regardless of stage time are probably the most iconic figures of the show besides Jean Valjean. Whereas mention Les Mis to a Frenchman and he'll immediately think of Cosette, the Th�nardiers, and Gavroche--and the idea that the English made a very famous musical based on LM is about as foreign to them as the idea that the French would make a famous musical based on Romeo & Juliet is for us. |
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| Aimee |
Orestes Fasting, that is wonderful, thank you so much for going to such an effort to show us all of that. I love Paris and have seen some of those things but never had the spare time or dedication to seek out the huge number of Mizzie places as you have.
Thanks! 
xx |
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| Colle |
Very nice! It is interesting to see how those places look like today. The garden/park is beautiful. If I am ever luck enough to go to Paris, I would love to see those places. | ||
| LesMisForever |
Very Nice OF.
I think this shows how lazy i am, lol. I went to Paris in May, and still nothing. But, i bought the scanner, and i will hopefully develop the picture this week. However, my Les-Miz related pictures are nothing like what OF has. Btw..did you go to the Louvre? |
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| Fantine |
Still no picture of Cosette's handkerchief though 
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| Gargamel |
Great pilgrimmage!
This page is probably the most complete one on the entire internet about pictures of the actual places in the novel! Amazing job!
Have you been to Place des Vosges where Hugo's home was? If so you probably saw the original illustration of Cosette with her broomstick that is used for the show poster! Wonderful trip. I understand it could sound strange to your parisian friends!
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| Orestes Fasting |
Yes, I did go to Hugo's house--but I didn't see the illustration! Wherever the Les Mis�rables stuff was, I must not have found it. | ||
| Gargamel |
Arf... maybe they removed it! When I went there, it was on some random wall... quite strange! 
For those who don't know what we're talking about, it is that: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Hugo_cosetteparemilebayard.jpg |
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| Orestes Fasting |
I remember they had a huge exhibit on Hauteville House, a good-sized one on Hugo's family, and a bunch of neat stuff--illustrations, manuscript pages, etc.--relating to Les Travailleurs de la Mer and La L�gende des Si�cles. But if I had seen the Bayard illustration, I definitely would have remembered it. | ||
| LesMisForever |
I didn't see that illustartion either.
But, did you notice how his bed was small? lol. |
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| Orestes Fasting |
One thing I forgot to mention--most of these places are in the Marais, so it's not that hard to visit them all. You can wander from the site of the barricade to Saint-Merry to the rue des Archives to 16 rue de la Verrerie, then go down the rue de Rivoli to the Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, make a detour into the rue de S�vign�, visit the Hugo museum, make your way to the place de la Bastille, and wander up to the rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. All before lunchtime, museum visit included.
Likewise, the place Edmond Rostand is right next to the Luxembourg and the Panth�on, and the rue du Champ de l'Alouette is within walking distance of 50 blvd de l'H�pital. Makes sense, really--the students stuck to the Latin Quarter, and Marius found the Field of the Lark by wandering the area around the Gorbeau tenement. And now I sound like Hugo. 
(At least I didn't try to recreate Javert's pursuit of Valjean from the Gorbeau house to the convent, which would have been an exercise in futility since that entire Petit-Picpus area didn't even exist anymore when Hugo wrote about it, let alone today.) |
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| Gargamel |
And they still do nowadays!
it is very nice to see the places of the actual story. It makes it even more "true" when you read it. Let alone when you already know the places when you read it for the first time!
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