Châtelet: origin of the name and station history
Served by: metro lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14.
Why this name?
Served by lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14, the station is, with République, one of the two on the network with five lines; it straddles the 1st and 4th arrondissements. Its name comes from place du Châtelet, laid out on the site of the Grand Châtelet, a fortress that served as a prison and court under the Ancien Régime and was demolished in 1802. The station has two parts linked by a long corridor with moving walkways, one of them 132 metres long, the first of its kind on the network. It has 19 entrances, divided into three sectors: Forum des Halles, Rivoli and Seine.
Anecdote
Flooded during the Seine flood of January 1910, it only reopened on 6 April of that year. Under quai de Gesvres, the « cagnards », old arcade galleries from 1642, were preserved at the request of the Commission du Vieux Paris, which explains the layout of line 7. In « Le Samouraï » (1967), Alain Delon shakes off a policewoman on the station's moving walkway, and a chase in « Diva » (1981) takes place there.
Around Châtelet
- Fontaine du Palmier, 90 m away — Built from 1806 to 1808 on place du Châtelet by the architect François-Jean Bralle, it is also called the Victory Fountain or the Châtelet Fountain. The sculptor Louis Boizot worked on its decoration.
- Tour Saint-Jacques, 140 m away — A 16th-century Flamboyant Gothic tower, remnant of the church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, at the centre of Paris's first railed-in square, created in 1856 by Alphand. A statue of Pascal (1857) recalls his experiments on atmospheric pressure. Restored from 2006 to 2009.
- Théâtre du Châtelet, 80 m away — A hall by Gabriel Davioud, built from 1860 to 1862 at Haussmann's request, with about 2,500 seats. The Ballets Russes premiered Petrushka (1911) and Daphnis et Chloé (1912) here; restored from 2017 to 2019.