Rue Sainte Anne

Rue Sainte Anne is basically an ordinary Paris city centre street.  Many of the buildings date from the 17^th century, when the street was created. It was named after Queen Anne d’Autriche, mother of Louis XIV, already during her lifetime. (Of course the name changed briefly during the revolutionary years.)

Today, you will find a concentration of Japanese restaurants, bars, shops…

As often, you have to try to look behind the gates and the doors (whenever possible) to find the nicest places.

The street has also a number of other nice shops, art galleries and travel agencies…

Of course a number of illustrious people moved in here when the street was fairly new, including Louis XIV’s court preacher J-B Bossuet and ….

… Jean-Baptiste Lully (born in Florence as Gian Baptista Lulli) (1632-87), who became Louis XIV’s “superintendent for royal music” and later director of the “Académie Royale de Musique”, the royal opera, then situated in the nearby “Palais Royal”-complex, taking over the space which previously was occupied by Molière’s troop. This is the house which he afforded to construct with the help of a loan by Molière. Originally, its exterior was decorated with a lot of musical symbols. (I found some details of the original decoration on the net.) Lully is considered as one of the most imminent baroque composers. He died from gangrene, having stuck his foot by his conducting staff. He was buried in the nearby Notre-Dame-des-Victoires basilica (see previous post).

Here we can listen to some Lully music.