History
The ancient Roman route (Flanders road) leading to Saint-Denis, Pontoise and Rouen it competed with the "route de Senlis" (see rue Saint-Martin) but gained an advantage over it with the demolition of the Grand Pont (see Pont au Change) and the development of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, becoming the triumphal way for royal entries into the capital.
Flanked by houses from 1134 onwards, the street has borne the alternative names of Sellerie de Paris and Sellerie de la Grande Rue (13th century) ; grand'rue de Paris ; grande rue or rue des Saints Innocents et grant chaussée de Monsieur / Monseigneur Saint-Denis (14th century). During the French Revolution, it was known as the rue de Franciade.
The street was one of the centres of the June Rebellion of 1832, immortalised in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables, and which is referred to in the book as the "Epic of the Rue Saint-Denis".
Read more about this topic: Rue Saint-Denis (Paris)
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—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
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“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)