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Rue de Richelieu

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Street in Paris, France
Rue de Richelieu
Rue de Richelieu at the Place Mireille
Rue de Richelieu is located in ParisRue de RichelieuShown within Paris
NamesakeCardinal Richelieu
Length990 m (3,250 ft)
Width12 m (39 ft)
Arrondissement1st, 2nd
QuarterPalais Royal Vivienne
Coordinates48°52′05″N 2°20′18″E / 48.868046°N 2.338371°E / 48.868046; 2.338371
From2 Place André-Malraux
To1 Boulevard des Italiens
Construction
Completion23 November 1633 (from Place Colette to Rue Feydeau)
18 October 1704 beyond
Denomination1634?, then 1806

The Rue de Richelieu is a long street of Paris, starting in the south of the 1st arrondissement at the Comédie-Française and ending in the north of the 2nd arrondissement. For the first half of the 19th century, before Georges-Eugène Haussmann redefined Paris with grand boulevards, it was one of the most fashionable streets of Paris.

It is most notable for scattered coin dealers and currency changers, being near the Paris Bourse, the stock market.

Name

The street is named for the Cardinal de Richelieu, chief minister of King Louis XIII from 1624 to 1642.

The street was originally called the Rue Royale and then Rue de Richelieu soon after. The name was changed to the Rue de la Loi during the French Revolution; its name was restored to Richelieu in 1806.

Notable buildings

  • Palais-Royal, a Richelieu residence (Monument historique)
  • Bibliothèque nationale de France, Site Richelieu, a historical building (Monument historique)
  • Comédie-Française, main hall (Salle Richelieu)
  • The old Fauré Le Page store located 8, Rue de Richelieu at the corner of the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue de Montpensier. The famous firearms played an active role to the French Revolution by distributing arms to the people in 1789 and in 1830.
  • The former Royal Palace Hotel, which opened in 1909 was located in the same building as the Fauré Le Page store.
  • The birth of the croissant itself—that is, its adaptation from the plainer form of kipferl, before the invention of viennoiseries—can be dated to at least 1839 (some say 1838) when an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese bakery ("Boulangerie Viennoise") at 92, Rue de Richelieu. This bakery, which served Viennese specialties including the kipferl and the Vienna loaf, quickly became popular and inspired French imitators (and the concept, if not the term, of viennoiserie, a 20th-century term for supposedly Vienna-style pastries). The French version of the kipferl was named for its crescent (croissant) shape and has become an identifiable shape across the world.
  • Rue de Richelieu at the Place Mireille Rue de Richelieu at the Place Mireille
  • Salle Labrouste, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Site Richelieu Salle Labrouste, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Site Richelieu
  • The old Fauré Le Page store is located at 8, Rue de Richelieu The old Fauré Le Page store is located at 8, Rue de Richelieu
  • The Royal Palace Hotel, inaugurated in 1909 The Royal Palace Hotel, inaugurated in 1909
  • Comédie-Française Comédie-Française

Access

___ Located near the Métro stations: Richelieu–Drouot and Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre.

See also

References

  1. The 1839 date, and most of what follows, is documented in Jim Chevallier, August Zang and the French Croissant: How Viennoiserie Came to France, p. 3–30; for the 1838 date, see Giles MacDonogh "Reflections on the Third Meditation of La Physiologie du goût and Slow Food" Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine (p. 8); an Austrian PowerPoint – Ess-Stile Archived 29 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine – gives the date of 1840 (slide 46). A 1909 image of the bakery shows the same date for its founding, but the bakery was already documented in the press before that.
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