The houses of the illustrious
Paris keeps the memory of more than its monuments. It also keeps the memory of its inhabitants. Since 2011, the « Maison des Illustres » label, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, has distinguished places of memory where people who left their mark on history, letters, the arts or the sciences lived and worked. Pushing open their door means stepping into their daily lives: a study, a studio, a bedroom, objects still in their place.
This walk takes you from house to house across Paris, by metro and on foot. It starts at place des Vosges, at Victor Hugo's home, where he lived for sixteen years, then continues to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal and the memory of Charles Nodier. It goes on to the Musée Curie, in Marie Curie's former laboratory, passes by Auguste Comte's apartment, then Eugène Delacroix's studio, hidden at the back of a courtyard in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It then heads into the 15th arrondissement, to the Musée Pasteur, before reaching Passy, where Balzac worked at night safe from his creditors and where Georges Clemenceau lived for more than thirty years.
Each door opens onto a different world: a poet's grand salon, a scientist's laboratory, a painter's studio, a philosopher's apartment, a novelist's house. Together they tell another Paris, more discreet than that of the monuments, but far more intimate.
Eight houses, eight portraits, eight ways of understanding what creation costs and what it leaves behind. Your free audio guide tells you the story of each one, and the route across Paris, step by step, saves you time.
Check the opening hours before you go: some houses close one or two days a week, and others can only be visited by appointment.
Let yourself be invited, the door is open.