Exit the square by turning right onto the Quai de la Mégisserie and follow it until you come to La Samaritaine just after Pont Neuf. This famous department store was founded in 1900 by Earnest Cognacq. It closed down in 2005, partly because the building no longer satisfied safety codes, but also because it had been operating at a loss for decades. It is due to reopen, eventually.
Cognacq opened his first shop in 1869, having started selling ties under an umbrella on Pont Neuf. He and his wife, Marie-Louise Jay, then rented a space on the rue de la Monnaie and did so well that they were able to open their own department store in 1900. This 11-storey building got an Art Nouveau makeover between 1903 and 1907 from architect Frantz Jourdain, and was radically altered again in 1933 by Henri Sauvage, this time in the fashionable Art Deco style. The store’s name comes from a fountain that operated near Pont Neuf between 1609 and 1813. It had a gilded bas-relief showing a scene from St John’s Gospel where a Samaritan women drew water from a well for Jesus. Cognacq and his wife were avid collectors of 18th-century art and their treasures are now housed in the Marais quarter’s Musée Cognacq-Jay.
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Following Quai du Louvre, continue along the river and turn right onto Cour Carrée. The magnificent east front of the Louvre will be on your left, and facing it overlooking a small green space is St-Germain l’Auxerrois. This was the parish church of the kings of France after the Valois court moved from the Ile de la Cité to the Louvre in the 14th century. Originally founded in the 7th century, stylistically it is a strange mix of Gothic and Renaissance, with the north tower only added in 1860. Its most arresting feature is the front porch, by Jean Gaussel, and it also has a beautiful rose window. The interior contains a wonderful carved wooden Flemish altarpiece and a churchwarden’s pew, which was made from drawings by Charles Le Brun by François Le Mercier in 1683.
The church’s many historical associations include the shameful starting of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre on 24 August 1572. To the tolling of the church’s bell, French Protestants, who had been lured to the city to celebrate the marriage of Catholic Margaret of Valois (the king’s sister) to the Protestant Henri of Navarre, were brutally murdered. Despite suffering badly during the Revolution (when it was used as a barn), the church suffered even more at the hands of ‘restorers’ in the 19th century, although this charming structure still manages to retain its character as a jewel of Gothic architecture.
St-Germain l’Auxerrois
Opening times: 8am–8pm daily
Tel: 01. 42 60 13 96
Link to the Tuileries walk: Leave Cour Carrée via rue du Louvre and follow it until you come to rue Etienne-Marcel and turn left.
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