The last house of a seventy-metre lane that has run along the south flank of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois since the Middle Ages, a few steps from the Colonnade of the Louvre. The Paris planning agency dates the present building to the first half of the nineteenth century; the hotel describes it as a seventeenth-century house. It is not protected. Below we set out what is documented about the street and the house, and where the two accounts part.
At a glance
The rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois takes its name from the priests of the parish church who lived along it; before 1244 it was called the rue du Cloître. In the nineteenth century it was the street of the Café Momus, meeting place of the bohemians of the 1840s made famous by Henry Murger, and of the Journal des débats. Number 21 is the highest number of the street, next to the corner house on the place du Louvre. The building database of the Paris urban planning agency (APUR) places its construction between 1801 and 1850. The hotel that occupies it, the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre, calls it a former private house of the seventeenth century. We have not found a record that settles the question, nor the name of a builder or an owner.
Key facts
- Where: 21 rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, 75001 Paris (Quartier Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois)
- Street: rue du Cloître before 1244; “rue des Prestre” in a survey of 1636; about 70 metres long
- Construction period: 1801–1850, according to APUR’s building database; seventeenth century, according to the hotel
- Plot: a small plot of about 115 square metres (cadastre, section AK, parcel 21)
- Architect and first owner: not known to us
- Protection: none. Not a listed historic monument; not a protected building of the Paris PLU
- Current use: hotel, the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre
- Coordinates: 48.859278, 2.340911 · open in Google Maps
History
The lane was the old way to the church from the south. The Marquis de Rochegude, in his 1910 survey of every street in Paris, gives its earlier name as the rue du Cloître, used before 1244. A report of a street inspection of 22 April 1636 names it the “rue des Prestre” and finds it dirty and muddy, blocked with heaps of manure. In 1702 it counted twenty houses and nine street lanterns. The parish cemetery of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois once lay on this ground, and in February and March 1898, when a sewer was dug in front of the south portal, the workmen found Merovingian sarcophagi; several were taken to the Musée Carnavalet.
The street’s best-known house stood a few doors away. Rochegude places the Café Momus, “made famous by Murger”, in the old mansard-roofed house at number 17, which in 1910 was occupied by the Journal des débats; the French Wikipedia article on the street, following the historian Jacques Hillairet, puts the Momus at number 19 and the Débats at number 17 from 1800 to 1940. The hotel at number 21 recalls in its own account that the writers of the nineteenth century met at the Momus from 1841. Drawings and photographs of the street by Thomas Shotter Boys (1819), Henri Lévis (1849) and Charles Marville (about 1865) survive in public collections.
About number 21 itself the sources say little. Rochegude does not list it among the notable houses of the street. APUR, whose open building database gives a construction period for each building in Paris, dates it to 1801–1850. The hotel states that it stands in a seventeenth-century building, a former private house with fine architectural details, and that breakfast is served in a vaulted cellar “once connected to the Louvre”. A house of the first half of the nineteenth century built on older cellars would reconcile the two, but we have found nothing that proves it either way.
What you see
We have not found a free photograph that shows this house clearly, nor an inventory description of it, so we describe the street as recent photographs on Wikimedia Commons show it. Seen from the place du Louvre, the lane is narrow and straight. On its north side runs the Gothic flank of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, with tall pointed windows, buttresses and carved pinnacles. On the south side stands a continuous row of tall, pale, rendered houses with wrought-iron balconies, window boxes and the hanging signs of hotels. At the far end the lane is closed by the decorated Art Nouveau front of La Samaritaine.
Practical information
- The building is a hotel, the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre; the interiors and the cellar are for guests.
- The street is open at all times and can be walked from the place du Louvre to the place de l’École in a minute.
- The house has no heritage protection; the church opposite is a listed monument.
Getting there
The street runs between the place du Louvre, opposite the Colonnade of the Louvre, and the place de l’École, near the Seine. The nearest Métro stations are Louvre – Rivoli (line 1), on the rue de Rivoli, and Pont Neuf (line 7), on the quai du Louvre, each a few minutes’ walk away.
Nearby
- The church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, across the street: the old parish church of the Louvre, listed as a historic monument in 1862 (Mérimée PA00085796).
- La Samaritaine, the department store that closes the end of the street, about 100 metres to the east.
- Louvre Museum, whose Colonnade faces the place du Louvre at the western end of the street.
- The house at number 17, seat of the Journal des débats from 1800 to 1940, and number 19, remembered as the house of the Café Momus.
Do you know more?
On this page we have published what we could verify about the street and the little that is recorded about number 21. We could not find when the house was built: the Paris planning agency dates it to the first half of the nineteenth century, the hotel to the seventeenth, and we have no document that decides between them. We also have no name of an architect or of the families who lived here, and no photograph of the house we are free to publish. If you know something — a date, a deed, the history of the vaulted cellar, an old photograph of the house or of the street — or if you can send us a photograph of the front, write to Sofia, who looks after these pages.
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Sources
- Félix de Rochegude, Promenades dans toutes les rues de Paris. Ier arrondissement, Paris, Hachette, 1910 (Internet Archive), p. 68: rue du Cloître before 1244, the excavations of 1898, number 17 and the Café Momus, the door with a mascaron at number 18; number 21 not mentioned.
- Wikipedia (fr), Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois: the length of the street, the inspection of 1636, the twenty houses of 1702 (after Jean de La Caille), the excavations of 1898 (after L’Ami des monuments et des arts, 1898), numbers 15, 17 and 19 (after Jacques Hillairet), the drawings and photographs of the street.
- Commission municipale du Vieux Paris, 1898: plan of the Merovingian burials found in February and March 1898 in the rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois (scan on Wikimedia Commons).
- APUR, Emprise bâtie Paris (open data): construction period 1801–1850 for the building on parcel AK 21.
- Cadastre (Etalab, cadastre.data.gouv.fr) and Base Adresse Nationale: 21 rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois on parcel 75101 AK 21, about 115 square metres; the neighbouring corner plot is 1 place du Louvre.
- Ville de Paris, PLU – Protections patrimoniales (Paris Data, dataset plub_pvp): no protection in the rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.
- Ministère de la Culture, Mérimée PA00085796 (church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, 1862); the house at number 21 is not among the historic monuments of the 1st arrondissement.
- Hôtel de la Place du Louvre, presentation, official site (Esprit de France): the owner’s account of the seventeenth-century house, the former private house, the Café Momus from 1841, the vaulted cellar “jadis reliée au Louvre”.
- Wikimedia Commons, category Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois (Paris): photographs of the street (2021 and 2025, by Chabe01), and the drawings and photographs by Boys, Lévis and Marville.
- OpenStreetMap / Nominatim: position, returned as 21, Rue des Prêtres Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, Paris 1er.
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