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Walk to the end of rue Campagne-Première and turn left onto Boulevard Raspail. The Fondation Cartier will be on your left at No. 261. An elegantly simple building, it was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel to house this contemporary art foundation. The structure has a lightness and transparency that acts as the perfect foil to the progressive works of art on show. Some of the exhibitions also showcase individual, group or thematic displays, often featuring work by new young artists. The complex incorporates a magnificent cedar of Lebanon, which was planted by François-René de Chateaubriand in 1823.
Fondation Cartier
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Continue along Boulevard Raspail until you come to Denfert Rochereau. The entrance to the Paris Catacombes is at No. 1 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy. Over the entrance to this vast network of underground tunnels is written: ‘Stop! This is the empire of death’. This strange place was the result of a 1786 plan to move the millions of skeletons from the city-centre cemeteries in places like Les Halles to a number of unused quarries at Paris’ three ‘mountains’: Montparnasse, Montrouge and Montsouris. It took 15 months to transport all the skulls and bones, and not a few rotting corpses, across the city. This was done at night, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the population. Huge carts could be seen rumbling across the city night after night, carrying their macabre cargo. Just before the Revolution, the Compte d’Artois (who was later King Charles X) used to throw wild parties here, while during World War II the French Resistance set up its headquarters in these vast and secretive tunnels.
Lion, Denfert Rochereau
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