busyNear the Boulevard Saint-Germain, you'll find a secret corner of Paris: the Cour de Rohan, three picturesque courtyards with a mule-mounting block and a well. This is where the guillotine was tested on its first victim - a sheep.
1 March 1792: It was on this Friday afternoon, that the first real guillotine was set up. Tobias Schmidt the maker of this prototype, had his workshop there, just opposite the printing office in number 8, where Marat had Ami du Peuple printed.
1835: the composer Saint-Saëns was born at a house where the small courtyard of the Cour de Rohan opens to the rue du Jardinet.
Augustus John left England for France in late September 1905. He stayed in Paris intermittently, moving into a studio in cour de Rohan in February 1907
1922 photo
October 1935: Balthus moved into the studio in the Cour de Rohan.
1930 photo
Winter 1943: Georges Bataille, author of Story of the Eye, splits up with Rollin after returning with her to Paris. Bataille finds lodgings with the painter Balthus through B's older brother, Pierre Klossowski, and spends the winter at the rather miserable studio at 3 cour de Rohan.
1956 painting
And, most important of all!
Immortalized as Gigi's home in the Vincente Minelli Oscar-winning movie of the same name in 1958, this relentlessly picturesque cul-de-sac in the heart of St-Germain-des-Prés wins the beauty contest for pure charm.
I live in Gigi's cul-de-sac! YEA!!!
*dances around the room singing "Thank 'Eavan for Leetle Girls..."
