Adrift in the middle of Paris: the island of Saint Louis

The islanders feel quite cut off from the European mainland, despite the six bridges onto it. "A few years ago I met a 65-year-old lady who had only left the island once, for the birth of her son," said Gillette, a former UNESCO official who is now writing a travel guide and occasionally gives tours of the island. Yet many other Parisians do not know the island that has been home to many wealthy people, revolutionaries and artists throughout the years. "Some have never even set foot on it," said Gillette. Celebrities still enjoy the insular character of Saint Louis. The grand facades and wrought-iron gates hide some of the most expensive luxury apartments in Paris away from prying eyes. The Greek chanson singer and componist Georges Moustaki lived here, as did the scandal-hit former French foreign minister Roland Dumas. It was also home to former French president Georges Pompidou and the artist Camille Claudel.

There are only a few streets between the Quai d'Orleans on the southern side of the Seine and the Quai d'Anjou in the north. The Rue Saint Louis is the lively centre of all island life. It leads past boutiques, galleries and restaurants to the Saint Louis en l'Ile church, which is literally overshadowed by its world famous sister Notre Dame de Paris, the Gothic showpiece that stands on the southern tip of the neighbouring Ile de la Cite. The writers Guillaume Apollinaire and Jean Giradoux, and artist Pablo Picasso, enjoyed this view when they met every Wednesday in the Maison du Centaure at 45 Quai de Bourbon. Louis Aragon and James Jones immortalised this view in literary works. The American Jones lived in a house on the river bank in Grand Siecle style and hosted poker marathons on Sunday afternoons. "Jones always insisted on mixing the drinks himself," said Gillette. With every bestseller he published, he was able to buy another storey of the house. Nature has battered the island over the years. Until the 17th century there were two more tiny islands here. But Henri IV attached them to the Ile Saint Louis, endowing the land with an architectural ensemble of impressive uniformity. The low-lying island has often been the victim of floods.

Even the construction of bridges proved tricky. The delicate wooden bridges were sometimes washed away by the Seine. Others were burned down by fire or rammed by barges. It is as if the island is resisting being shackled to the mainland. "Sometimes I think Saint Loius has got it into its head never to come into contact with Parisian soil," wrote Gillette in a book of nine walks through Paris. Yet despite its isolation, the Ile Saint Louis never remained untouched by the passage of time. During the 1871 popular uprising, a red flag flew from the church tower. The imposing Hotel Lambert, designed by architect Louis Le Vau on the Rue St. Louis, served as the Communards' hospital. Injured rebels were summarily executed by state forces on the river bank nearby. During the French Revolution the previous century, this island had been home to the blood-thirsty revolutionary Pierre- Andre Couffinhal, who was also executed.

The Polish connection, as Gillette calls it, has also left a special mark on the island. When the Russians advanced as far as Poland, the leader of the provisional Polish government Adam Czartoryski fled to Paris. Among visitors here in the 1830s were Frederic Chopin, George Sand and the Polish writer Adam Mickiewicz. A museum dedicated to him on the island also houses a Polish library. The Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie, born in Sklodowska also lived on Saint Louis from 1912 until her death in 1934. You might expect this island, inhabited by the wealthy and famous, to be arch conservative. Yet election statistics suggest otherwise. This is because the rich tend to cast their vote where they have their second residence, rather than in their Parisian home. As a result, the left usually wins here. Perhaps this is why Leon Blum, socialist Popular Front prime minister in the 1930s, so liked to visit the island.

(dpa)