Église Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

The church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont is located in the Latin Quarter on the Place Sainte Geneviève, just opposite the Panthéon. The church has a long and rich history that dates back to the very early days of Paris. It is dedicated to St. Stephen but more famously enshrines relics of the patron saint of Paris, St. Geneviève. It stands on the site of an abbey founded by Clovis I (466-511), King of the Franks, son of Childeric, and the first king to convert to Christianity. The abbey was later dedicated to St. Geneviève, who was so popular in the Middle Ages that the abbey had to be enlarged to accommodate all the pilgrims. Construction on the present abbey church began in 1492, and with many a start and stop, took nearly 130 years for the present church to reach completion in 1626.

From Place de la Contrescarpe, Saint-Étienne-du-Mont is a short walk on rue Descartes to rue Clovis. (In the other direction from Place de la Contrescarpe, rue Descartes becomes rue Mouffetard.)  This view is the approach from the back of the church on rue Clovis.

“Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont/Begun under Francis I/Ended under Lovis XIII”

Upper half of the façade

Looking up at the spire 

Saint Stephen is the  sculpture to the left of the main entrance. The statue holds a palm branch in his hand, symbolizing a martyr’s triumph over physical death and has a stone next to his feet, a reference to the way the saint died. Saint Geneviève is the sculpture to the right of the entrance.

The sculpted tympanum (semi-circular wall surface over an entrance), the The Stoning of Saint Stephen,  is the work of French sculptor,  Gabriel-Jules Thomas. Saint Stephen (death c 34 AD) was the first Christian martyr, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. (The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the new Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian church and the spread of its message to the Roman empire.) Stephen had been appointed by the Apostles as a deacon whose job was to distribute food and charitable aid to poorer members of the community in the early church. He came into conflict with members of a local synagogue, who denounced him to the Sanhedrin (the Jewish court) for blasphemy. During his trial, he had a vision of Christ standing at the right hand of God, which infuriated the court, and a mob took him outside and stoned him to death. 

 FYI: In the movie “Midnight in Paris,” Owen Wilson was sitting on the steps to the side entrance of this church, when he saw the yellow 1920 Peugeot Landaulet that transported him back to the 1920s and the Paris of his dreams.

The interior of the church is 223 feet long. The nave contains five bays containing dedicated chapels. The chancel (area where the service is conducted) is surrounded by an ambulatory (aisled space around the altar.) 

The wooden pulpit is on the right and the famous Rood Screen, one of the most unusual features of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, spans the nave between the spiral staircases.

The decorative canopied wooden pulpit dates from 1651 and is supported by a muscular Samson with the jawbone of an ass in his hand  and a slain lion at his feet.

The Rood Screen dramatically crosses the nave like a bridge and separates the choir, where the monks or canons sat, from the body of the church where the parishioners sat. This Rood Screen is the only one left in Paris. It is a tremendous work of craftsmanship which adds elegance to the interior.

A reader would mount the screen by way of the intricately carved stone steps to do the readings for the day.

The Crucifix above the Rood Screen

The main altar in the chancel 

The organ dates from 1633. Its organ case is a masterpiece of carving and an architectural element in its own right. Concerts are held in Saint-Étienne-du-Mont quite often.

Chapel of St. Geneviève

At the age of 15, Geneviève (422-512 AD) became a nun who was admired for her piety and devotion to works of charity. In 451, after Attila crossed the Rhine and neared Paris, Parisian citizens were ready to flee the city in terror. Geneviève told them that if they kept their faith in God, fasted, prayed and performed penance, the city would be protected by heaven, and their lives would be spared. It is claimed that the intercession of Geneviève's prayers caused Attila's army to go to Orléans instead of to Paris. In 464, she interceded with Childeric I (440-482) to allow her to bring grain to the blockaded city under siege and suffering famine and to show clemency to prisoners of war and the citizens of Paris. (Childeric was a Merovingian king and father of Clovis, who would unite the Franks and found the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the region of Gaul for the next 300 years.)

The French revolutionaries wanted to “dechristianize” France for philosophical, political and economic reasons. In 1793, the revolutionary regime put St. Geneviève’s bones on trial and condemned them to public burning for “participation in the propagation of error.” Her ashes were then cast into the Seine River.  Although the majority of the relics of St. Geneviève were publicly burned, some small surviving pieces as well as the rock her tomb rested on and relics that survived the Revolution in other locations are enshrined at St-Étienne-du-Mont.

The elaborate covering with a pointed arch, similar to a baldachin, rises above the glass and brass tomb containing St. Geneviève’s burial stone.

Tomb, chapel and reliquary are located on the southern side of the church. 

A Reliquary containing a finger bone of St. Geneviève.

From the time of the early Christians, relics of the saints were believed to possess miracle-granting properties; the saints supposedly had the ability to intercede on behalf of humankind, so their relics were sought-after commodities.

Chapel of the Blessed Virgin

The entombment of Christ in the Chapel of the Sepulcher

Victor Baltard built the Catechism Chapel at the back of the church (reached through the sacristy) in the 1860s as an extension to the existing church. In the hallway are stained glass windows which illustrate Biblical stories.

The false god Baal being consumed by fire

The wedding at Cana and the crucifixion

The Garden of Eden with serpent

Noah and the Arc and the Church as a boat with Christ, the apostles and Church fathers

The altar in the Catechism Chapel

Les Arènes de Lutèce

The fifth arrondissement is home to the only remaining vestiges of the Gallo-Roman era in Paris. (Gallo-Roman describes the meld of the culture of Gaul and Rome under the Roman Empire.) The vestiges include the remains of the thermal baths at Musée de Cluny, and the Arènes de Lutèce. The Arènes de Lutèce (the former name of Paris) is a real Roman arena dating from the first century A.D.  It was one of the largest of its kind ever built by the Romans. The Arènes was used as a theater, circus, and sporting arena. Seating accommodated about 15,000 audience members. Upper bleachers were relegated to women, children, slaves and those of lesser financial status, while the lower seats were reserved for Roman officials. Circus acts showcased wild animals and gladiator contests, and Greek tragedies were popular theatrical productions of the time. There were five cubbyhole-type indentations under the bleachers, some of which were believed to be barred animal cages that opened directly into the arena. 

Now a public park and garden, visitors to Les Arènes de Lutèce will be able to view only a few remnants of the once-grand amphitheater. It is now a popular place for an outdoor lunch, a game of boules, or a pickup game of soccer. 

From the street, the arena is concealed by large apartment buildings situated around it. There are three different entrances, but the easiest one to find is on rue Monge.  At 47, rue Monge, there is a gladiator helmet over the doorway. 

The gladiator helmet above the entrance to Les Arènes

The passageway through the building at 47, rue Monge 

Behind the green doors is a totally unexpected sight.

“Les Arènes was constructed as an amphitheater in the first century AD. It was used until the decline of the Roman Empire in the third century, when barbarians destroyed Lutèce. Buried under masses of earth, it was unearthed in 1870 at the time of the great Haussmann renovation of Paris during the building of the future rue Monge.”

The Arènes de Lutèce is accessible by three different entrances. The first is a passageway through the building at 47, rue Monge; the second is an open corridor accessible from rue de Navarre through a gate ( pictured here); and the third is through the Square Capitan from its entrance at 10, rue des Arènes. You can also see 2 barred cages for animals that open out to the arena.

The arena and bleachers

Kids on the bleachers

The bleachers and the entryway from rue de Navarre

A view from the upper tier opposite the rue Monge entrance

Apartment building and end of the passageway from rue Monge 

Bleachers to the right of the passageway

A view to the right of the passageway

A view from an upper level of the garden built around Les Arènes

A path from the street level on rue de Navarre continues upward.

The path circles and goes higher.

The top of the path

The stairs go downward to gain access to the upper tier of Les Arènes.

The upper tier of Les Arènes 

The Jussieu campus tower is in the background.

The sculpture is a monument to the memory of Gabriel Mortillet, a French archaeologist and anthropologist who played an important role in early research on prehistoric man. 

Right on top of the pillar, there used to be a bronze bust of Mortillet,
 but it was melted down during the Occupation.

“Gabriel Mortillet - 1821-1898”

The path leads to an overlook of the Square Capitan.

Doctor and anthropologist Jean-Louis Capitan (1854-1929) continued excavation and restoration of Les Arènes toward the end of World War I. The neighboring Square Capitan is dedicated to his memory.

The steps on the left descend from the upper tier of Les Arènes.

June gardening continues on the Square Capitan.

After visiting the Arènes, retrace your steps through the building passageway or walk  on rue Navarre toward rue Monge, cross  rue Monge and climb the elegant staircase to Rue Rollin. This narrow pedestrian street will lead you to rue du Cardinal Lemoine, which is a short distance from the Place de la Contrescarpe. 

A cherry-picker can be useful to a gardener, too.

There is a tubular watering system for each plant.

Fontaine de la Rue Rollin has a mascaron, a face of a human, often grotesque, carved in stone or metal. A mascaron was originally used to frighten away evil spirits so that they would not enter the building. The concept gradually became a purely decorative element.

Place de la Contrescarpe is situated on rue Mouffetard, where rues Lacépède and Cardinal-Lemoine meet. It is a picturesque and popular square, surrounded by cafés and featuring a fountain at its center.  Ernest Hemingway lived around the corner from there on rue du Cardinal-Lemoine on the third floor of number 74, and described the square in The Snows of Killimanjaro. Balzac also described it in Père Goriot. The fountain was put in in 1990. The word “contrescarpe” itself is from the creation in 1852 of a military emplacement there. The square now is dominated by two cafés, one of them La Chope, the other La Contrescarpe. Rue Lacépède feeds into the Place from the left.

The fountain in the Place de la Contrescarpe, with rue Mouffetard on the left

Ernest Hemingway used to drink at the café La Chope now known as the Café Delmas.

The fountain in the Place de la Contrescarpe with Café Delmas in the background. 

Rue du Cardinal-Lemoine is between Café Delmas and Bistrot Italien.

The fountain, with streams of water shooting upward toward the middle

On the facade of no. 12 is a  painted-glass sign, a vestige of the colonial era, which is the preserved storefront of Au Nègre Joyeux, “The Happy Negro Chocolate Factory.”  It depicts a smiling black man dressed as a servant waiting on a white woman seated at a table. There is speculation that the black man is Zamor, the Bengali-born servant of Madame du Barry, serving his mistress her morning chocolate. Madame du Barry was the mistress of Louis XV, eventually betrayed by Zamor for her association with the nobility, and guillotined during the French Revolution. An online petition demanded the sign’s removal because of its racist overtones. 

The Place de la Contrescarpe is the starting point for a visit to rue Mouffetard, the famous market street, which becomes pedestrian-only farther down the way. Rue Mouffetard has ancient origins and follows the line of the old Roman road to Italy. The area was not part of Baron Haussmann’s redevelopment plans because of its location on a hill, so it remained largely unchanged. (It’s best to start at this end of rue Mouffetard because the rest of the street is downhill all the way.)