History
The boulevard Saint-Michel was the other important part of Haussmann's renovation of Paris on the Left Bank along with the creation of the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was formerly approximated by the rue de la Harpe which for centuries led from the Seine to the Porte Saint-Michel, a gate to the walls of Paris near what is now the intersection of the Boulevard Saint-Michel and rue Monsieur le Prince. Construction of the Boulevard was decreed in 1855 and began in 1860. The boulevard was initially known as the boulevard de Sébastopol Rive Gauche, but was changed to Boulevard Saint-Michel in 1867. The name is derived from the eponymous gate destroyed in 1679 and the subsequent Saint-Michel market in the same area (the current Place Edmond Rostand).
Numerous streets disappeared as a result of the boulevard's creation, including the rue des Deux Portes Saint-André, the passage d'Harcourt, the rue de Mâcon, the rue Neuve de Richelieu, the rue Poupée, part of rue de la Harpe and of rue d'Enfer, part of the former place Saint-Michel and the rue de l'Est. The part of the boulevard Saint-Michel at the entrance of the rue Henri Barbusse and the rue de l'Abbé de l'Epée was previously known as the place Louis Marin.
During 1871, the Hôtel des Etrangers was the meeting place of the Vilains Bonhommes (renamed Circle Zutique by Charles Cros) which included Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.
Jules Vallès, socialist writer and survivor of the Paris Commune was buried in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise. His body was carried there from the funeral home at n° 77, into which 10,000 people are claimed to have squeezed.
On December 10, 1934, the founders of the Comité de rédaction du traité d’analyse met at the Café A. Capoulade, n° 63, to discuss writing a textbook on mathematical analysis. This meeting included Henri Cartan, Claude Chevalley, Jean Delsarte, Jean Dieudonné, René de Possel and André Weil. They were, together with others, to become famous in mathematical circles as the Bourbaki Group.
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“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
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