Saint-Germain-des-Prés

After strolling around a bit in the area, we have now reached the church Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which used to be part of an abbey with the same name. Just in front of the church you have one of Paris’ most well-known cafés, "Les Deux Magots", and very close you find also "Café Flore" and the famous brasserie "Lipp". The name “…-des- Prés” (= “… in the Fields”) indicates that the abbey was not in the centre of the city when it was founded, as we can see on this old picture where there are no other buildings all the way down to the Seine bank (the old Louvre on the other side of the river). The abbey was outside the "Philippe Auguste wall" (of which we saw some traces at Cour-du-Commerce-Saint-André and at Saint Paul and which I traced on a map in a previous post).

The origins are very old; the abbey was founded already in the 6th century (now and then destroyed – the Normans again). In 990 it was decided to rebuild the church, starting with the tower – the one which is still there, the oldest one in Paris. The construction of the complete present church was basically finished in 1163 with a roman older part and newer gothic part.

The church and the abbey remained as a basic intellectual centre until the Revolution. We can see how in the 18th century the abbey covered a large area. Fires, the Revolution and urbanization destroyed most of the surrounding abbey, but the church (in the red circle) survived and was restored during the 19th century.

Along the church wall you can still find some traces of the connection between the church and the rest of the abbey and one abbey building remains, the abbot’s red brick residence, which you can see here photographed from Place de Furstenberg. The interior of the church has some original stained glass windows from the 13th century. You can find the tombs of, among others, Descartes and John Casimir (Jan Kazimierz), a Polish king (only their hearts are now left here).

A few of these pictures can be found on my photo blog.