Montparnasse-Bienvenüe: station history
Served by: metro lines 4, 6, 12 and 13.
Why this name?
Served by lines 4, 6, 12 and 13, in the 15th arrondissement, on the border of the 14th, the station is one of the busiest on the network. With George V, it is one of only two stations named after a man still living at the time: Fulgence Bienvenüe, father of the Paris metro. It extends the former « Avenue du Maine » station. The four present stations were built in 1937, and an interchange corridor of about 185 metres links lines 4 and 12 to line 13.
Anecdote
The former Montparnasse station on place de Rennes, closed in 1969, was replaced by the Tour Montparnasse. In 2002, an experimental high-speed moving walkway, presented as the fastest in the world, was installed: it ran at 11 then 9 km/h before being removed, the RATP having announced its dismantling in May 2009. The moving walkways of the interchange corridor were replaced between 2019 and 2021, and Bernard Baissait's scenography dates from 2000.
Audio guide
The Granville-Paris Express breaks through the front of the station
October 22, 1895: the Granville-Paris express crosses the facade of the Montparnasse station... The photo of the Lévy studio, taken within an hour of the accident, will travel around the world.
The train, pulled by Western Railways locomotive No. 721, left Granville on time at 8:45 a.m. with 131 passengers. Arriving several minutes late, the mechanic approaches the station at 40 or 60 km/h to catch up. The Westinghouse air brake proves to be faulty or ineffective, and that of the locomotive is not enough: the convoy crosses the bumpers, crosses the hall, pierces a wall 60 cm thick and the locomotive falls about ten meters on the Place de Rennes, where it remains erect on the nose.
The accident claimed only one victim: Marie-Augustine Aguillard, who was waiting in the street in place of her husband, a newspaper salesman, and who was killed by falling masonry. Two passengers, a driver, two train attendants and a passerby were injured. The mechanic was sentenced to two months in prison and a fine of 50 francs for approaching the station too quickly, a sentence later suspended.
Releasing the cars is easy, but it takes 48 hours and a 250-ton winch to lower the locomotive, which has almost nothing.
On 25 August 1945, the capitulation was signed at Montparnasse station
Opened in 1840 at the end of rue de Rennes, the Gare de l 'Ouest was demolished in 1969. It was rebuilt further south, and the Montparnasse Tower took its place in 1973.
Did you know? On August 25, 1944, Leclerc installed his command post in the station, a safe place with functional lines of communication. In the afternoon, von Choltitz, taken prisoner at the Meurice Hotel, signs the ceasefire order to the German garrisons. Colonel Rol-Tanguy, head of the FFI, co-signs the act of capitulation with Leclerc. De Gaulle arrived shortly after: Leclerc handed him the deed, and the general pouted at the signature of Rol-Tanguy, a communist. A few hours later, he shouts at the City Hall: "Paris liberated!"
In 1990, the TGV Atlantique brought the "ocean gateway" and the Atlantic garden, above the tracks.
Around Montparnasse-Bienvenüe
- Musée de la Libération de Paris, 1200 m away — Housed in Ledoux's pavilions on place Denfert-Rochereau, it opened on 25 August 2019. Under the west pavilion was Colonel Rol-Tanguy's FFI command post. It replaced the museum that stood at Montparnasse.
- Musée Bourdelle, 230 m away — The studios and gardens where sculptor Antoine Bourdelle lived and worked, preserving over five hundred of his plasters, marbles and bronzes.
- Tour Montparnasse, 50 m away — A 210-metre skyscraper, one of the tallest in Paris, offering a 360° panorama over the whole capital from its rooftop.
- Cimetière du Montparnasse, 600 m away — A historic cemetery holding the graves of Baudelaire, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, a haven of calm in the heart of Paris.
- Jardin Atlantique, 300 m away — A suspended garden built above the tracks of Gare Montparnasse, an unexpected green space in the middle of Paris.