Cour du Commerce Saint-André, Paris

Cour du Commerce Saint-André is an open-air passage lined with shops, running between boulevard Saint-Germain and rue Saint-André-des-Arts. Its story reaches back to the medieval wall built around Paris by King Philip Augustus: fragments remain inside shops on the even-numbered side, including a tower remnant at number 4. The passage grew across former jeu de paume grounds around 1776, then lost about forty metres when boulevard Saint-Germain was created in the 1860s.

At number 9, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin lodged with a carpenter named Schmidt; Local tradition holds that sheep were used to try the device linked to Guillotin’s name at that lodging. A plaque at number 2 commemorates Sainte-Beuve’s residence, and Balthus later made this passage the setting for an enigmatic street scene.