Les Halles: station history
Served by: metro line 4.
Did you know?
Opened in 1908 on line 4, between Porte de Clignancourt and Châtelet, the station originally served the Paris market halls, then standing above the street that split their twelve pavilions into two groups, today allée André-Breton. When the new line 4 tunnel opened, it was moved a few dozen metres to the east, which allows very short walking links with the RER A, B and D platforms. It is in the 1st arrondissement, under the Les Halles complex, with an entrance at 230 rue Rambuteau.
Anecdote
The station is divided into two half-stations separated by a load-bearing wall with large openings, each with a track by the wall and a side platform on the other side. The two original entrances, with a simple wrought-iron surround, stood near the church of Saint-Eustache, and at least one of them is still there. No bus line serves the station; platform screen doors were installed there between late January and mid-February 2020.
Audio guide
The Saint-Eustache Church in the heart of the belly of Paris
The Church of Saint-Eustache is a Gothic cathedral built during the Renaissance.
It took a century of construction (1532-1632) to raise it: Gothic plan, Renaissance decoration. It became the largest church in Paris after Notre-Dame, planted in the heart of Les Halles, the "belly of Paris".
Here, Molière was baptized in 1622, Richelieu before him, and Louis XIV made his first communion there in 1649. In 1778, Mozart celebrated the funeral of his mother, who had died in Paris.
Under the vaults, a giant: 8,000 pipes, the largest organ in France. Berlioz created his Te Deum there in 1855, and Liszt resounded his Mass in Gran there in 1866. Today, concerts are still given there. 🎶
In front of the gate, a giant stone head rests against a hand: L 'écoute, by Henri de Miller (1986).
Les Halles, the former belly of Paris
For more than eight centuries, Paris has eaten in one place.
It all began in 1137, when Louis VI le Gros set up a market on the Champeaux. Under Napoleon III, the architect Victor Baltard rebuilt it between 1852 and 1872: pavilions of iron and glass, immense and luminous. In 1873, Zola decorated the Ventre de Paris.
Every night, forts, fishmongers and market gardeners work on it, until dawn and its famous onion soup.
But in 1969, the market moved to Rungis: it was "the move of the century". In 1971, the pavilions were razed in the middle of August to make way for the RER station and the Forum. Only one survives: Pavilion No. 8, raised in Nogent-sur-Marne. In its place, a huge chasm, the "Trou des Halles", before the Forum, then the Canopy in 2016
Around Les Halles
- Fontaine des Innocents, 230 m away — Paris's oldest monumental fountain, built in 1549 by Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon for the royal entry of Henri II, now a listed historic monument.
- Forum des Halles, 90 m away — A vast underground shopping centre built on the site of Paris's former central market.
- Église Saint-Eustache, 150 m away — A vast Gothic and Renaissance church, renowned for its acoustics and grand organ.
- Bourse de Commerce, 270 m away — A former 18th-century circular building converted into a contemporary art museum by the Pinault Collection.