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Rue François-Miron

Oldest Paris · 4th arrondissement

Rue François-Miron

Two timber-framed houses that look medieval and may partly be, on a street that follows a Roman road out of the city.

Photo: Polymagou, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The street bends gently through the southern Marais because it is older than the Marais. It follows the line of a Roman road that left Lutetia for Melun and Sens, and for centuries it was the first stretch of rue Saint-Antoine, the main road east. Its present name, given in the nineteenth century, honours François Miron, provost of the merchants of Paris under Henri IV.

Nos. 11 and 13 stop most passers-by: two narrow, gabled, timber-framed houses, the first known by the old sign of the Reaper, the second by the sign of the Sheep. For most of their life their timbers were hidden. Paris regulations of the early seventeenth century curbed overhanging upper storeys, and plaster was the usual protection against fire; timber fronts across the city disappeared under render. Here the frame was uncovered and restored in the late 1960s, at a time when the City was persuaded to save rather than demolish several old houses on the street.

How old are they? Honestly, no one can say precisely. They are often called medieval, and some writers attribute a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century structure to them; others say they are documented only from the early sixteenth century. What is certain is that the restorers rebuilt part of the timberwork to give the fronts their ‘medieval’ appearance, and that the contrast of dark wood and pale plaster is a modern choice: such houses were usually painted. They are a fair image of old Paris, not an untouched survivor.

Further along, at nos. 44–46, the Maison d’Ourscamp is a pair of houses built in the 1580s by the Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp over the vaulted Gothic cellar of its thirteenth-century town house. The City acquired it, and since 1964 it has been the home of the Association pour la sauvegarde et la mise en valeur du Paris historique, which fought for these streets. At no. 68, the hôtel de Beauvais, built in the later 1650s by Antoine Le Pautre for Catherine Bellier, the queen mother Anne of Austria’s chief lady’s maid, lodged the seven-year-old Mozart and his family in the winter of 1763–1764. It now houses the Paris administrative court of appeal.

What to look for

  • The crossed and lozenge patterns of the timber framing on nos. 11 and 13, and the jettied upper floors.
  • The traditional names of the two houses, the Reaper and the Sheep.
  • The long uniform fronts of nos. 2 to 12 opposite, built in the 1730s, as a contrast.
  • The façade of the Maison d’Ourscamp at nos. 44–46; its Gothic cellar lies below.
  • The symmetrical façade of the hôtel de Beauvais at no. 68, which Le Pautre achieved on an awkward, irregular plot.
Photo: Eugène Atget, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

  1. 1248The abbey of Ourscamp acquires land here for its Paris house (uncertain date)
  2. c. 1585Maison d’Ourscamp rebuilt over its medieval cellar (uncertain date)
  3. 1607Paris regulation restricts overhanging upper storeys
  4. 1763–1764The young Mozart stays at the hôtel de Beauvais
  5. 1964Paris historique association moves into the Maison d’Ourscamp
  6. 1967Timber frames of nos. 11 and 13 uncovered and restored (uncertain date)

Plaques within 250 m

  • 11 Rue François Miron · 0 m
    MAISON / À L'ENSEIGNE / DU FAUCHEUR / XIVE SIÈCLE
  • 13 Rue François Miron · 0 m
    Maison à l'enseigne du mouton XIVe siècle
  • 26 Rue Geoffroy L'asnier · 80 m
    HOTEL / de / CHALON-LUXEMBOURG / bâti vers 1625 / pour Guillaume PERROCHEL et / Françoise BUISSON, sa femme, / donné à la ville de PARIS par / Jean WALTER (1883-1957) architecte, / fondateur des bourses ZELLIDJA. / Gabriele d'ANNUNZIO y vécut en 1944.
  • 2 Et 4 Rue François Miron · 110 m
    Ici vécurent les Couperin musiciens français 1653-1826
  • 24 Rue Du Bourg-Tibourg · 200 m
    (TEXTE EN HÉBREU) / MORT EN DÉPORTATION 1943 / ORATOIRE TEPHILAT ISRAËL / 24 RUE DU BOURG-TIBOURG- PARIS 4E
  • 18 Rue Des Ecouffes · 200 m
    FONDATION ROGER FLEISCHMAN / CRÉÉ EN 1931 EN SOUVENIR DU JEUNE TZADIK / ROGER FLEISCHMAN ÉTUDIANT EN MÉDECINE, MORT À L'ÂGE DE 19 ANS / CENTRE D'ENSEIGNEMENT DE LA TORA DE DIEU POUR LES ENFANTS. / ORATOIRE / VÉRITÉ-JUSTICE-CHARITÉ
  • 20 Rue Des Écouffes · 210 m
    LE PEINTRE / PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE / NÉ A BRUXELLES LE 26 MAI 1602 / EST MORT LE 12 AOUT 1674 / DANS UNE MAISON / SITUÉE SUR CET EMPLACEMENT
  • 9 Rue De Moussy · 230 m
    LE POÈTE / LOUIS GUILLAUME/ A DIRIGE CETTE ECOLE / DE 1948 A 1963

Commemorative plaques, Ville de Paris open data (ODbL); transcriptions as published, in French. 11 in all within this radius.

Sources

More places nearby

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