Thousands of skeletons were once piled up on its site.
And yes! It was on the Place Joachim-du-Bellay (Paris Centre) that the church and cemetery of the Saint-Innocents stood in the Middle Ages. This gigantic necropolis, burial place of about twenty Parisian parishes, the Hôtel-Dieu and several prisons, was open to all winds… This cemetery, although unsanitary, was a popular place for Parisians to stroll – people sometimes even danced on the square! According to the historian Jules Michelet, “haunted by the night of thieves, by the night of the crazy girls who plied their trade on the tombs”.
Over the centuries, the cemetery overflowed to the point that the deceased were buried even in the cellars of the houses in the neighborhood, where fragments of skeletons are still sometimes found today. It was only in 1786 that the bones were transferred to the old quarries in the south of the capital, which became the catacombs of Paris.
She celebrated the entry of Henry II into Paris in 1549
King of France from 1547, Henry II made his solemn entry into Paris alongside his wife Catherine de Medici on June 16, 1549. For the event, the streets were covered with silk fabrics and animated by choirs and pantomimes. , living paintings, and jousts are even organized there.
The sculptor Jean Goujon was commissioned to design and create many ephemeral architectural elements along the rue Saint-Denis (Paris Centre) – of which only rare engravings remain. Imagine: in front of the church of the Holy Sepulchre (now gone) there was an obelisk surmounted by a rhinoceros, which symbolized France victorious over the monsters!
On this route, only one masterpiece by Jean Goujon remains: the Fountain of the Innocents. One of the oldest fountains in Paris. Its decoration includes coats of arms of Henry II and the City of Paris.
It is the first fountain with an architectural dimension, abandoning the traditional layout of the small building in the center of a crossroads. The fountain then appeared as a masonry building, in the form of a loggia opening with two arcades onto rue aux Fers and a single arcade onto rue Saint-Denis. This loggia was raised on a fairly high base which masked the fountain reservoir. The loggia was initially intended to accommodate a few privileged spectators along the route of the royal procession.
This Renaissance treasure was recognized as a historic monument in 1862.
She narrowly escaped destruction… twice
November 9, 1785: a decree from the King’s Council decides to allocate the location of the cemetery of the Innocents to the herb and vegetable market. The public authorities therefore decided to eliminate the cemetery, but also the parish of Saints-Innocents…
The Fountain of the Innocents, for its part, was narrowly saved from demolition. It is then dismantled and then completely reassembled in the center of the new herb market. Rectangular in plan with two facades, it was transformed into a square building with four facades. The work was entrusted to Bernard Poyet, city architect, particularly sensitive to the taste for classicism and the Renaissance. He called on the sculptor Augustin Pajou to create the missing sculpted decorations, in the style of Jean Goujon, who had sculpted the original nymphs of the first two facades. The new square fountain, topped with a small dome covered in slate, is established on a massive base and is placed parallel to the buildings on rue de la Ferronnerie.
Nearly two hundred years later, as Paris was preparing to build the Forum des Halles (Paris Centre), the idea of dismantling the fountain was once again considered. In February 1973, the High Commission for Historical Monuments decided to keep it on site of the building, particularly due to its fragility.
The Fountain of the Innocents is therefore ultimately kept on site and protected behind fences for the duration of the work on the “Trou des Halles”. A complex technical device based on reinforced concrete has even been designed to anchor it in the ground.
It is a new island of freshness
The water from the fountain was originally distributed only in the form of thin streams coming out of six small lion’s mouths. It came from the springs of the north of Paris captured at Belleville and Pré-Saint-Gervais, then from the Seine thanks to the Notre-Dame pump. Then water arrived in abundance after 1809, from the Ourcq canal. To celebrate this event, a large party was organized on August 15, 1809, in the presence of Emperor Napoleon I.is.
Fifty years later, while the Baltard halls (Paris Center) were built, the fountain was dismantled again, moved a few dozen meters and reassembled in a new typically Haussmannian tree-lined square created by the architect Gabriel Davioud: its base is redesigned to magnify the waterfalls, the Fountain of the Innocents becomes purely ornamental.
But, since 2017, the water has no longer flowed there at all. A shame for an architectural element whose style inspired Sir William Wallace to design his famous fountains!
Also, the work that has just been completed does not only have the objective of restoring the building: the fountain’s hydraulic system will be functional again for the summer! This will constitute a new island of freshness in the Halles district.
Her graceful nymphs are on display at the Carnavalet museum until August 25, 2024.
It is sometimes nicknamed “the fountain of the Nymphs” because of its mythological creatures. Indeed, each facade of the Fountain of the Innocents includes a triangular pediment surmounting an attic provided with a bas-relief paying homage to the marine world: little laughing genies move among the shells and dolphins.
Eight very beautiful naiads occupy the intercolumns. The rendering of the drapes of their clothes, the grace and their elegance, everything about them is remarkable. As part of the restoration, the three nymphs made by Augustin Pajou in the 18th centurye century were restored on site and the five nymphs of Jean Goujon dating from the 16the century were moved to the workshop.
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