Montparnasse and the 14e
France > Paris > Southern > Montparnasse
The story goes that students used to drink and declaim poetry from the top of a pile of spoil deposited from the Denfert-Rochereau quarries, on what is now place Pablo Picasso, calling the mound Mount Parnassus after the legendary home of the muses of poetry and song, and of drunken Bacchus. This may or may not be how the area got its name but the reputation of Montparnasse for carousing persists to this day, though its status as a nightspot really stems from the construction of the Mur des Fermiers Généraux in 1784, or "Customs Wall", which split the high-taxed city from the poorer, less regulated township areas beyond. Bohemians and left-leaning intellectuals gravitated from the staid city centre to Montparnasse's inexpensive cafés and nightspots; among them Verlaine and Baudelaire in the nineteenth century, Trotsky, Hemingway, Sartre and de Beauvoir in the twentieth. Montparnasse's lasting fame, however, rests on the patronage of artists, especially during the 1920s, following the exodus from Montmartre. Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Man Ray, Modigliani, Giacometti and Chagall were all habitués of the celebrated cafés around Place Vavin, and many were buried in Montparnasse cemetery. Still more bones lie nearby in the grim catacombs.The area immediately around the station is dominated by the gigantic Tour Montparnasse, which you can ascend for a superb view of the city. In the tower's shadow, a handful of artist's museums recall Montparnasse's traditions, while the Fondation Cartier showcases the work of contemporary artists. South of the station, the 14e is one of the most characterful of the outer arrondissements. The old-fashioned networks of streets still exist in the Pernety and Plaisance quartiers, where many artists chose to live in the affordable villas (mews) built in the 1920s and 1930s. Down in the southeast corner of the arrondissement you'll find plenty of green space in the Parc Montsouris and the giant student campus of the Cité Universitaire.
Pages in section ‘Montparnasse’: Tour, Museums, Boulevard, Observatoire, Fondation Cartier, Cemetery & catacombs, Pernety, Parc Montsouris.
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