Corvisart: origin of the name and station history
Served by: metro line 6.
Why this name?
The station takes its name from rue Corvisart, which honours Jean-Nicolas Corvisart (1755-1821), Napoleon I's personal physician, a specialist of the lungs and heart, named « First Physician of the Emperor ». Elevated, with a canopy-style glass roof, it is near the church of Sainte-Rosalie, the Butte-aux-Cailles and the jardin Brassaï. The viaduct that partly carries it dates from 1904.
Anecdote
In 1912, makeshift workshops were set up under the arches of the elevated metro to reassemble the floats of the Nice Carnival, brought to parade in Paris for the fiftieth anniversary of Le Petit Journal, since no Paris workshop had doors wide enough. In 1978 Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc sang « Brouillard » on rue Corvisart.
Around Corvisart
- Butte-aux-Cailles, 280 m away — A former village of cobbled lanes and low houses, spared from Haussmann's grand renovations.
- Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles, 400 m away — An Art Deco pool fed by a natural artesian spring discovered in 1863.
- Place d'Italie, 500 m away — A vast crossroads in the 13th arrondissement, the gateway to Paris's Chinatown.