Now, Childebert wasn’t a perfect man – in fact, he was allegedly involved in killing his two young nephews so that he could take the throne. But luckily, he had Germain, the Bishop of Paris, as his advisor. Germain must have been a perfect guy, because he was later made a saint. It was he who suggested Childebert have the church and monastery built in the fields near the city’s western border, to house holy relics that Childebert had gained in a battle in Spain. The church was originally called Saint-Vincent et la Sainte Croix (Saint Vincent and the Holy Cross), but when Germain died in 576, his remains were placed here and the church was renamed in his honor.

Besides its holy relics and the body of a saint, another thing that made the church an important part of the early Parisian landscape was its bronze roof, a feature which no other church in Paris had. Unfortunately, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and its abbey were destroyed when the Normans invaded in the 9th century. Some ruins remained, but it wasn’t rebuilt until around 1000 AD – this time without the bronze roof. Still, the church and monastery complex remained very important. This importance reached its height in the 17th century, when an order of Benedictine monks called Maurists, after another local saint, was founded. These monks, who answered only to the Pope, devoted themselves to intellectual pursuits. As we’ll see, since then, the area surrounding the church seems to have been a breeding ground for thinkers and artists.

For example, in 1635, Cardinal de Richelieu, an important and very powerful Minister of France, founded the Academie Francaise, which, later on, settle down in this neighborhood’s northernmost end, bordering the Seine. This was at first a school, but later became a site where panels of experts gathered to discuss academic issues. Because since 1635, four other "académies" join the Académie Française in a unic place called the Institut de France : the "Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres" (1663), the "Académie des sciences" (1666), the "Académie des beaux-arts" (originally called "Académie de peinture et de sculpture" founded in 1648 by Cardinal Mazarin), and the "Académie des sciences morales et politiques" (1795).

The Academie Francaise still operates today. These are the people who meet, every Thursday, to analyze the French language and to help keep it standardized and preserved. It’s thanks to them that unlike many languages, written French has changed comparatively little over the centuries. Then again, it’s also thanks to them that there’s such a wide difference between the pronunciation and the spellings of French words…. Being on the Académie seems like a pretty good gig. For one thing, each member is elected for life. This means that they are often referred to as “les Immortels”. Another benefit is that each Immortel has his or her own armchair to sit in during proceedings. This is because back in 1672, one member suffering from the gout came to a meeting in…you guessed it, an armchair. This caused an outrage among the other members, whose posteriors were settled on hard wooden chairs. King Louis XIV himself was asked to intervene. He decided that everyone would get a comfortable place to sit from then, on.

But, as most of us know, while people in high society were arguing over having a nice place to sit, the poor people of Paris were growing more and more discontent. About a hundred years after the armchair incident, Revolutionary thought began to ferment, as influential thinkers and politicians from near and far came together…often over a café table. Some of the major figures of the French Revolution lived here, and frequented the neighborhood’s cafes, where they would proclaim their thoughts and theories, and spread their ideas. In the charming Passage St-André des Arts, one of the most picturesque covered passages of Paris, one finds the Procope, which holds many distinctions, among them being the first place in Paris to sell coffee, in 1686. Perhaps drawn by the brew, the Procope’s clientele is legendary, from intellectuals like Diderot and Voltaire, to Revolutionaries like Danton and Desmoulins, to politicians from all over the Western world, among them Richard Wallace, Benjamin Franklin, writer, philosopher, and first United States Ambassador to France. Just across the passage is a courtyard where Revolutionary writer Marat lived and printed his seminal news journal, L’ami du peuple . A few metres away is the site where the guillotine was first tried out, on sheep. Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and other leading lights of the French Revolution lived in this area, and met in its cafes, as well as in their own apartments, to discuss their thoughts and plans for the future. This section of St-Germain-des-Prés was often referred to as the Cordeliers neighborhood, for the convent of that name nearby where a political club headed by Danton, held meetings.

During the Revolution, the church of St-Germain-des-Prés was used as a gunpowder manufactory, and the monastery became a notorious prison. The abbey buildings were destroyed soon after, and today only the 16th century façade of the Bishop’s residence can be seen, behind the church, on the quiet rue de l’Abbaye.

But where the monastery was destroyed, new buildings rose up, housing apartments, shops, and, of course, cafes. In the early 19th century, writers and other thinkers frequented these locales. In 1881, the Deux Magots, formerly a curiosity shop, reopened its doors as a café. A few decades later, it would be known throughout the world. Inspired by historians like Viollet-le Duc, fellow medieval art enthusiasts, “restored” the church of St-Germain-des-Prés in the mid-1800’s. Today, a visitor will notice that the interior is magnificently painted in a variety of colors and medieval designs. The paint looks old, and it is – but only about a hundred and fifty years old, not nearly a thousand. In another artistic neighborhood milestone, Delacroix came to live in a private residence off the Square Furstemberg, where he stayed while decorating a chapel in the nearby church of Saint Sulpice. This residence has been turned into the Musée Eugène Delacroix (Delacroix Museum).

But for all these major events, St-Germain-des-Prés’ heyday didn’t come until the 20th century. By then, the area’s cafes had started to draw some of the era’s most famous artists and intellectuals. Among the most popular were the Brasserie Lipp (opened in 1880), which today mostly boasts political clients, and the Flore (founded in the late 1860’s) and the Deux Magots, which are practically next to each other, just off the western side of the Place St-Germain-des-Prés. Already illustrious nineteenth century patrons like Verlaine, Rimbaud, Huysmans, and Oscar Wilde (who died in the nearby Hôtel des Beaux-Arts), gave way to a new generation.

A number of important and interesting things happened in these and other local cafes. In the Flore, for example, future founders of Surrealism André Breton and Philippe Soupault were introduced to each other by St-Germain-des-Prés resident Guillaume Apollinaire. On the neighborhood’s boulevards and café terraces, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway wrote, boozed, and generally contributed to the myth of the wild-living expat writer. During the German Occupation in the ‘40’s, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir chose this area to write their Existentialist texts. Other movements, such as Oulipo, also grew up in the neighborhood café’s and jazz clubs. Jazz – this was THE place to be in Paris if you loved jazz. From the 1920’s through the ‘60’s, this new music blared into the nights, fueling the imaginations of countless artists and writers – not to mention young couples out dancing into the wee hours.

Today, a few of St-Germain-des-Prés’ legendary sites still exist. Tourists can sip a coffee at the Flore or the Deux Magots, and see where Hemingway and other greats once sat composing masterpieces. The numerous art and design galleries on streets like the rue du Seine and the rue Mazarine, pay homage to the neighborhood’s artistic heyday, and promote talented contemporary artists, as well. But as with most trendy, avant-garde places that attract large crowds, in recent years Saint-Germain-des-Prés has seen some more commercial additions to its landscape, which purists and nostalgic people deplore. Nowadays, it’s just as easy to spot a literati-approved bookshop along the Boulevard St-Germain, as it is to find a clothing store or couture house. It’s easy to understand why this commercial evolution, devoid of any sense of the area’s history, has been taken rather badly by some. When what was once the local pharmacy has been gutted and taken over by a trendy clothing company, it’s easy to see why people worry that the neighborhood may lose its identity. Of course, depending on who you ask, this commercialization may not be an entirely bad thing. A person might argue that it’s part of what makes this quartier so great to visit: walking along Saint-Germain-des-Prés’ streets today, visitors not only get to experience following the footsteps of now-mythical artistic and historic figures; they can also take part in one of Paris’ most popular pastimes, window shopping.

One thing that does seem to have stayed more or less the same, though, is that the area is still a busy one, the terraces of its many cafes are always full in nice weather. And in the midst of it all, the Church of St-Germain-des-Prés, nearly 1500 years old, stands like a mid-sized giant surveying the life going on all around it.