Back in Paris (I’m not the only one)! I went to the real centre of Paris, “point zero”, which is incrusted in the pavement just in front of Notre Dame. This is the point to which all distances to Paris are calculated.The parvis, the open space, in front of the Notre Dame has something else which everybody may not notice. There are traces and plates in the pavement indicating that the place was full of buildings and tiny streets and alleys until Haussmann transformed Paris during the 19th century. (This was the case all over Paris, including around the Louvre.)
One of the buildings in front of Notre Dame was the oldest hospital in Paris, Hôtel Dieu, created in 651, known under different names (Hôpital Saint-Christophe, Hôpital Notre Dame) until it seems to have got the name Hôtel Dieu (Domus Dei, the House or Hostel of God) during the 12th century.
On the old relief plan of Paris (1739), you can see that the hospital then covered a large area, on both sides of the river, connected by the Pont au Change bridge, with hospital buildings. (The present bridge with the same name dates from the 19th century, see also my previous post.) At their peak, the old hospital buildings housed some 9.000 patients, up to six for one bed!
The old Hôtel Dieu was replaced by the present one, built 1868-1878. It covers a large area on the left side of the Notre Dame parvis, just in front of where the old one used to be.
The new one was for those days very spacious and modern and supposed to receive maximum some 800 “guests”. It’s still in very active use, today together with some other 20 hospitals inside the Paris borders.
One detail is the coloured statue. It is supposed to represent a famous surgeon from the 18th century, but the local hospital students have a habit to repaint every year. You can see some samples of different looks here.
I wish you a nice weekend!
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