Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
FAUBOURG ST-GERMAIN
In the 18th century, Faubourg St-Germain - a formal world of exquisite ironwork, gold
leaf and conventional manners west of St-Germain des Prés - was Paris' most fash-
ionable neighbourhood. French nobility moved across the river from the more
crowded, polluted Marais and built magnificent hôtels particuliers(private mansions),
particularly around rue de Lille, rue de Grenelle and rue de Varenne. Balzac captured
its aristocratic way of life in his novel La Duchesse de Langeais.
After the Revolution, many of these mansions were turned into national institutions,
and there's now an overdose of embassies and government ministries;
Hôtel
ence of the French prime minister since the start of the Fifth Republic (1958). Rodin
worked and exhibited in the palatial 1730-built Hôtel Biron, now the
Musée Rodin
,
and
it was to the stylish pad at 53 r
ue de Varenne that Edith Wharton moved in 1910 to
write Le Temps de l'Innocence(The Age of Innocence).
bourg lived from 1969 until his death in 1991. It's still owned by his daughter, actor-
singer Charlotte Gainsbourg; tours have been mooted but as yet haven't happened
due to the logistics of accommodating legions of fans in the space. Meanwhile, neigh-
bours have long since given up scrubbing off admirers' reappearing graffiti and mes-
sages.
53 rue de V
