Trocadéro (Line 6)
Named for the 1823 Battle of Trocadéro when France took the Spanish Isla del Trocadéro. The Palais du Trocadéro was built on the hill of Chaillot for the 1878 World's Fair, but the building was unpopular and eventually demolished and replaced by the Palais de Chaillot. The statues we've all seen outside the Musée d'Orsay of the rhinoceros and the elephant used to sit in the gardens of the Palais du Trocadéro.
Émile Zola (Line 9)
Popular French writer of many novels, plays, stories, and essays. Childhood friends with artist Paul Cézanne until writing his novel L'Oeuvre, in which Cézanne found himself negatively portrayed. In 1898 his article J'accuse was published in a Paris newspaper. The article was written as an open letter accusing the military of antisemitism and is noted for its large influence in shaping public opinion.
Denfert-Rochereau (Line 6 and 4)
Right across from the Catacombs, Place Denfert-Rochereau was formerly Place D'Enfer (Place of Hell), until after the Franco-Prussian war, when the name was changed to honor a commander in the war. This station, along with a few others, used to be part of line 5, but was transferred to line 6 to separate the above and below ground stations during WWII, as the above ground stations were clearly more open to attack.
Very interesting, thank you for the detailed history on these lines. After reading this, I began to look up the history on some of the metro stops that I took fairly often:
ReplyDeleteJussieu (line 7 and 10): originally this station was named Jussieu-Halles-aux-vins due to the wine market that was located nearby. Once the market was no longer there, because of the installment of the Jussieu Campus in 1957, the metro name was condensed to just be Jussieu. Metro Jussieu gets its name from the De Jussieu family. This family consisted of prominent botanists from the late 17th century all the way up to the late 19th century. Most of these members were formally trained in medicine, published many vital works on botany and laid down the groundwork for the future generations in the field of plant biology.
Raspail (line 4 and 6): François-Vincent Raspail, born in 1794 in Carpentras, France, was a chemist and naturalist whose scientific accomplishments were instrumental for scientists that came after him. Raspail, along with several other scientists, developed the cell theory. He was also a major supporter for the use of the microscope for examining tissues. In 1830, he shifted his focus to politics due to the revolution that was occurring in France.