From Saint-Paul to the Bastille by the Place des Vosges: audio walk in Paris
Follow the faceless prisoner from his grave to his prison: the church of the king and the cardinal, old Sully, the square of silk and courtesans, Hugo's house, the street of the 1559 tournament, the church where Fouquet was buried and the Bastille that isn't where you'd look for it, with the papers someone rescued from its moat.
1.48 km · ≈ 54 min · 13 stops · ES / EN
What this walk is about
On the Rue Saint-Paul there was once a cemetery where, in 1703, a prisoner nobody had ever seen without his mask was buried under a false name. You walk towards his prison past the church of Louis XIII and Richelieu, the courtyard of old Sully and the Place des Vosges, born on the site of a cursed palace, with its carousel for peace with Spain, its courtesans and Hugo's house. On the Rue Saint-Antoine you hear where the lance broke that killed Henry II, and you pass the church where Fouquet, the false suspect, was buried. On the outline of the Bastille drawn on the ground you discover how the fortress's archives, thrown into the moat in 1789, were saved, and with them the invoice for a bishop's cage. You finish in front of the column that stands where a plaster elephant once stood.
- Start
- The cemetery of secrets
- Finish
- The elephant made from captured Spanish cannons
- Who it is for
- A good starting point for your first visit. A walk for anyone curious about mystery backed by documents and royal history. A choice for families with teenagers.
- Languages
- Spanish and British English
- Underfoot
- The walk is mostly level.