Rue des Francs-Bourgeois
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Rue des Francs-Bourgeois

The main lateral street of the northern part of the Marais, which also forms the boundary between the 3^e and 4^e arrondissements, is the rue des Francs-Bourgeois. Beatnik Jack Kerouac translated it as "the street of the outspoken middle classes", which is a fair description of the contemporary residents, though the name in fact means "people exempt from tax", in reference to the penurious inmates of a medieval almshouse that once stood on the site of no. 34.

At the western end of the street at no. 60, the magnificent eighteenth-century Palais Soubise, fronted by an impressive colonnaded courtyard, houses the Archives Nationales de France and the Musée de l'Histoire de France (Mon & Wed–Fri 10am–12.30pm & 2–5.30pm, Sat & Sun 2.30–5.30pm; €3.50; M° Rambuteau & M° St-Paul), the latter of which hosts permanent and temporary exhibits of documents from the archives. Among the authentic bits of paper that fill the archive's vaults are a medieval English monarch's challenge to his French counterpart to stake his kingdom on a duel, and Joan of Arc's trial proceedings with a doodled impression of her in the margin. A section on the Revolution includes the book of samples from which Marie-Antoinette chose her dress each morning, and a Republican children's alphabet where "J" stands for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and "L" for labourer. The museum also provides an opportunity to enter perhaps the Marais' most splendid mansion, with some fine Rococo interiors and paintings by the likes of Boucher.

Opposite the Palais Soubise, at the back of a driveway for the Crédit Municipal bank, stands a pepperpot tower that formed part of the city walls; these were built by King Philippe-Auguste early in the thirteenth century to link up with his new fortress, the Louvre. Further along, past several more imposing facades and the peculiarly public lycée classrooms at no. 28, you can enter the courtyard of the Hôtel d'Albret (no. 31). This eighteenth-century mansion is home to the cultural department of the mayor of Paris, its dignified facade enhanced or marred, depending on your point of view, by a concrete and steel column, a 1989 Bicentennial work by Bernard Pagès, in which red and blue "ribbons" hang down over thorns.

The next landmarks on the street, at the junction with rues Payenne and Pavée, are two of the Marais' grandest hôtels, the sixteenth-century Carnavalet and Lamoignon, housing, respectively, the Musée Carnavalet and the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, the latter housing centuries' worth of texts and picture books about the city. Next to the Lamoignon, on rue Pavée – so called because it was among the first Paris streets to be paved, in 1450 – was the site of La Force prison, where many of the Revolution's victims were incarcerated, including the Princesse de Lamballe, who was lynched in the massacres of September 1792. Her head was presented on a stake to her friend Marie-Antoinette.