Rue Saint-Honoré

• 1. The Street Called Honoré

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  Rue Saint-Honoré takes its name from a bishop who died in 600 AD. Saint Honoré, also known as Honoratus, was Bishop of Amiens. A collegiate in his name once stood within the old cloisters beside his church. The street bearing his name runs through the 1st arrondissement of Paris, close to the Tuileries Gardens and the old Saint-Honoré market. It was laid out in the Middle Ages, possibly earlier, and for centuries it was not one street but a patchwork of named sections. Each name reflected the trades, the landmarks, and the fortifications of that part of the city. At its far end, the street once crossed the old city walls into the faubourg, the area outside the gates. That outer stretch eventually became a distinct address: the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. What stayed inside the walls accumulated something rarer than a name. Between Nos. 146, 148, and 150, the remains of King Philip II are entombed. A Protestant church stands at No. 145 next door, and just beyond lies the site of the former Couvent des Feuillants.

• 2. A Hundred Borrowed Names

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  In 1204, the stretch between what is now the Rue Royale and the long-vanished Rue du Rempart went by the name Chemin de Clichy. By 1283, the same ground was called the Grand chemin Saint-Honoré. Over the next four centuries it changed names more than ten times. Among those names were Chemin Royal in 1393, Nouvelle rue Saint-Louis in 1407, and Rue Neuve-Saint-Honoré in 1638.

  One block between the Rue de la Lingerie and the Rue de la Tonnellerie took the name Rue de la Chausseterie as early as 1300. That section kept the name through the 17th century. A separate block, between the now-extinct Rue Tirechappe and the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, was called the Rue du Chastiau Festu in 1300. The section between the Rue de l'Arbre Sec and the old Rue du Rempart accumulated nearly a dozen recorded spellings. It ranged from Rue de la Croix du Trahoir to variants spelled du Triouer and du Trioir.

  In 1631, the old Porte Saint-Honoré was torn down and rebuilt, now facing the Rue Royale rather than the Rue de Richelieu opposite. In 1670, Paris demolished its northern fortifications, and the street briefly became Boulevard Saint-Honoré. That name covered the route from the Rue Saint-Antoine to the Rue Saint-Martin. In 1966, the portion between the Palais-Royal, the Comédie-Française, and Place André Malraux was given the name Place Colette.

• 3. Blood at the Gate

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  On the 8th of September 1429, Joan of Arc attacked the Porte Saint-Honoré and was wounded. Her attempt to retake Paris from the English failed.

  On the 14th of May 1610, a Catholic zealot named François Ravaillac attacked King Henry IV of France in his coach at No. 9. Ravaillac killed the king there. A Spanish composer named Juan Chrisostomo Arriaga y Balzola would later make No. 314 his last known address.

• 4. The Revolutionary Corridor

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  Between Nos. 229 and 235, the Couvent des Feuillants became a gathering point during the French Revolution. Right-wing dissidents from the Society of Friends of the Constitution met there. These men backed a constitutional monarchy over a republic, and their number included La Fayette, Barnave, and Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth. After the insurrection of the 10th of August, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and their family were held at the convent for three days.

  The same street housed Sieyès at No. 273 and Robespierre at No. 398. Robespierre was sheltered there by a man named Maurice Duplay. On the 28th of July 1794, the cart carrying Robespierre to the guillotine at the Place de la Concorde stopped in front of No. 398. Later, a banker named Claude Perier fitted out his town house in what remained of the convent's estate.

• 5. Lives on the Street

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  On the 15th of January 1622, the playwright known as Molière was born at No. 92. His name would come to define French comic theatre. His birth was recorded at a simple address on a street already centuries old.

  Two years before Molière was born, a different resident had left No. 129 for good. Louis Gaston Hebert was one of the founding pioneers of Canada. He sailed for New France in 1620, taking his wife and three children with him.

  At No. 314, over two centuries after Hebert's departure, a young Spanish composer named Juan Chrisostomo Arriaga y Balzola spent his final days. Arriaga was born in 1806 and died in 1826 at the age of twenty. The Église Saint-Roch at No. 284, a short walk from Arriaga's final address, had stood on the street long before any of these lives began.

• 6. Stones and Facades

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  Cardinal Richelieu built the Palais-Richelieu in 1629 at what is now No. 204. The building is known today as the Palais-Royal, and it also serves as the seat of the Comédie-Française.

  Down the street at No. 211, the former Hôtel de Noailles was built in 1715 by the architect Pierre Cailleteau dit Lassurance. That building rose on the footprint of the older Hôtel Pussort. Some parts of the Pussort structure still survive within the Hôtel Saint-James et Albany complex. The building was later known as Hôtel Bertin.

  At No. 251, the Nouveau Cirque ran as an entertainment venue from 1886 to 1936, a span of fifty years. The Église Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Paris occupies Nos. 263 and 265.

  The most recent addition is the Immeuble des Bons-Enfants at No. 182, built between 2000 and 2004. It now serves as an arm of the French Ministry of Culture. Its street-facing façade, designed by Léon Vaudoyer, was later clad with an ornamental metallic net called a résille. Francis Soler and Frédéric Druot served as the executing architects for the project. Hôtel Costes, at No. 239, continues to operate among these older neighbors. At No. 310, a perfume shop called Solférino Paris continues to trade alongside the museums and upscale boutiques that line the street today.