Rue du Bac, Paris

Rue du Bac, Paris
Construction
Rue du Bac
Shown within Paris
Length	1,150 m (3,770 ft)
Width	20 m (66 ft) (average) between quais Anatole France and Voltaire and the boulevard Saint-Germain. 18 m between the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the rue de Sèvres
Arrondissement	7th
Quarter	Saint-Thomas d'Aquin
Coordinates	48°51′23″N 2°19′35″E / 48.85639°N 2.32639°E / 48.85639; 2.32639
From	quai Voltaire, Paris and quai Anatole France
To	rue de Sèvres, Paris
Completion	Opened between 1600 à 1610

Rue du Bac is a street in Paris situated in the 7th arrondissement. The street, which is 1150 m long, begins at the junction of the quais Voltaire and Anatole-France and ends at the rue de Sèvres.

Rue du Bac is also the name of a station on line 12 of the Paris Métro, although its entrance is actually located on the boulevard Raspail at the point where it is joined by the rue du Bac.

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The rue du Bac starts at its southern end at the Bon Marché department store. The department store is on both sides of the street. On the left is La Grande Épicerie, the Bon Marché’s upscale grocery market. And here on the left is the entrance to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal. Shops on the left, and Le Bon Marché continues across the street on the right. This cross street is the rue de Babylone. Across the street on the right is The Conran Shop, which sells household stuff. Linens, lamps, mattresses, things like that. I think it’s actually part of Le Bon Marché. This street illustrates a common problem in Paris: narrow sidewalks. Way too much of the street is sacrificed to cars. Almost three lanes for cars, but sidewalks barely a yard wide. There’s a tiny park there across the street: the Square des Missions Étrangères. Notice how the narrow sidewalks force me to squeeze past people. Sorry about the occasional sniffling. This is the rue de Varenne. It runs east-west. We are walking due north. Off to the left (west), it runs past the Prime Minister’s mansion. That’s why there was a police officer on the corner. This street has a wonderful assortment of shops of all kinds. One of the rare spots where the sidewalk is reasonably wide. And this is the rue de Grenelle. Notice the slow-roasting chickens in the rotisserie outside the butcher shop. Mmm … they smell delicious! These sidewalks are way nicer! This is a really nice part of town. This big diagonal street is the boulevard Raspail. This little street is the rue Paul-Louis Courier. Boulevard Raspail right in front of us. Just beyond, the Boulevard Saint-Germain. There’s a big Monoprix supermarket there across the street. This Monoprix is a bit more chichi than most, given the neighborhood. This is the rue de l’Université. I’m trying to decide which side of the road I want to walk on. Okay, I’ll continue on the right side. This tiny street is the rue de Verneuil. This place coming up across the street is AGA, famous for its stoves. (This cross street is the rue de Lille.) AGA’s stoves are very retro but apparently of excellent quality. These poles along the sidewalk keep cars from parking on the sidewalk. And here we are, at the Seine River, and the end of the rue du Bac. Thank you for watching my video.

History

Rue du Bac owes its name to a ferry (bac) established around 1550 on what is now the quai Voltaire, to transport stone blocks for the construction of the Palais des Tuileries. It crossed the Seine at the site of today's Pont Royal, a bridge constructed during the reign of Louis XIV to replace the Pont Rouge built in 1632 by the financier Barbier.

Originally, the street was named Grand Chemin du Bac, then Ruelle du Bac and Grande Rue du Bac.

Buildings of note

Odd street numbers

1 : Built by Auguste Rolin and C. La Horgue in 1882-1883
83–85 : Former monastery of the Immaculate Conception built in 1637. It also occupied numbers 87 and 89 rue de Grenelle [fr], onto which the garden extended.
97 : Hôtel de Ségur (also called Hôtel de Salm-Dyck) : This house was built in 1722 for Pierre Henry Lemaître (also owner of the château du Marais [fr]), perhaps by François Debias-Aubry [fr]. Some of the interior décor dates to that period. From 1786 to 1792 and from 1796 to 1798 it was occupied by Madame de Staël, who held a regular salon here.
101 : Hôtel de La Feuillade

Even street numbers

2–4 : The Caisse des dépôts et consignations, the public financial institution created in 1816 to control financial affairs in the public's interest
40 : The door of this building opens on a perpendicular passage to the rue du Bac. Inside the passage was the Hôtel Cochin where Charles de Montalembert lived.
44 : In 1932, André Malraux wrote a portion of Man's Fate here.
46 : The outside door has panels representing Prudence and Law, sculpted by Michel Varin. The original 18th century interior had wood paneling adorned with work by the painters Carle Van Loo, Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Jean II Restout. It was dispersed at the end of the 19th century. Some of its elements have been redisplayed at the musée Jacquemart-André, the Hôtel de Pontalba (rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré) and the castle of Vaux-le-Pénil (near Melun in Seine-et-Marne department).
70 : Building from the years 1830–1840
102 : Hôtel de Sainte-Aldegonde, built in the first half of the 18th century
104 : This is where the artist, actress and draughtswoman Sonia Mossé lived until her deportation in 1943. She exhibited her sculpture at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in 1938.^[1]
110 : Across courtyard, studio and house constructed in 1812 for himself by Pierre-Louis Baltard, father of the architect Victor Baltard. The ground floor of the house was occupied by James McNeill Whistler from 1892 to 1901.^[2]
118–120 : Two hotels, separated by a party wall, built between 1713 and 1715 by Claude Nicolas Lepas-Dubuisson for the Missions étrangères de Paris. The hotel at 120 is known as the Hôtel de Clermont-Tonnerre, the name of the landlord who held the property at the end of the 18th century, and where François-René de Chateaubriand lived in 1838 and died in 1848. The doors representing the four corners of the world (the evangelical goal of the Missions étrangères de Paris) are probably the work of Jean-Baptiste Tureau.
128 : Missions étrangères de Paris, an evangelical Catholic organization : The chapel was built between 1683 and 1689 by master mason Lepas-Dubuisson (father of the architect of 118–120).
136–140 : Older buildings constituting the convent Maison des Filles de la Charité de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul (mother house of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul), including the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, the burial place of St. Catherine Labouré. This is the address where the character Mr Klein lived in the 1976 film Mr Klein.^[3]

Destroyed buildings

84 : Former entrance into the garden of the Hôtel de Galliffet, which has its main entrance at 73 rue de Grenelle [fr]; marked by a massive porch that was torn down in 1837
86 : Site of the former Hôtel Dillon

References

^ "Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France One-Step Search Results". stevemorse.org. Retrieved 2022-10-17.
^ Ronald Anderson and Anne Koval, James McNeill Whistler: Beyond the Myth, Carroll & Graf, New York, 1994, pg. 357 et seq.
^ "Mr. Klein (1976)". IMDb.