Musée de l’Histoire de France
A fine place to start exploring the Marais is the eighteenth-century magnificence of the Palais Soubise, which houses the Archives Nationales de France and the Musée de l’Histoire de France. The palace’s fabulous Rococo interiors are the setting for changing exhibitions drawn from the archives, as well as a permanent collection of documents including Joan of Arc’s trial proceedings, with a doodled impression of her in the margin, and a Revolutionary calendar where “J” stands for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and “L” for Labourer. The palace’s interior gardens make for a pleasant stroll.
Musée Picasso
Set in the magnificent seventeenth-century Hôtel Salé, the Musée Picasso emerged in 2014 from a major five-year renovation and now has three times as much exhibition space available to display its five thousand paintings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures and photographs, representing almost all the major periods of the artist’s life from 1905 onwards. Many of the works were owned by Picasso and on his death in 1973 were seized by the state in lieu of taxes owed. The result is an unedited body of work, which, although not including the most recognizable of Picasso’s masterpieces, does provide a sense of the artist’s development and an insight into the person behind the myth. In addition, the collection includes paintings Picasso bought or was given by contemporaries such as Matisse and Cézanne, his African masks and sculptures and photographs of him in his studio taken by Brassaï.
Place des Vosges
A grand square of symmetrical pink brick and stone mansions built over arcades, the place des Vosges, at the eastern end of rue des Francs-Bourgeois, is a masterpiece of aristocratic elegance and the first example of planned development in the history of Paris. It was built by Henri IV and inaugurated in 1612 for the wedding of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria; Louis’s statue – or, rather, a replica of it – stands hidden by chestnut trees in the middle of the grass and gravel gardens at the square’s centre. The gardens are popular with families on weekends – children can run around on the grass (unusually for Paris the “pelouse” is not “interdite”) and mess about in sandpits. Buskers often play under the arcades, serenading diners at the outside tables of restaurants and cafés, while well-heeled shoppers browse in the upmarket art, antique and fashion boutiques.