Abbey of Saint Genevieve

Stand still for a moment on the slope of this hill. The cobbles tilt under your feet, rising toward the dome of the Panthéon. Somewhere nearby, students argue outside a café, and a school bell rings behind tall stone walls. You are standing on top of one of the oldest Christian sites in Paris... and almost none of it survives above ground.

This is the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the highest point of the Left Bank. Today it is the heart of the Latin Quarter, full of schools, bookshops and narrow lanes. For well over a thousand years, this hill belonged to an abbey. Its church, its cloisters and its library shaped the life of the city. To find what remains, you have to look closely.

The story begins at the start of the sixth century. Clovis, the first king to unite the Franks, had converted to Christianity. He and his queen, Clotilde, founded a church here on the hilltop. It was dedicated to the Holy Apostles. When Clovis died in 511, he was buried inside it. Clotilde was later laid to rest here too. In other words, this hill held one of the first royal tombs of the kingdom that became France.

But the church took its lasting name from someone else — a woman named Genevieve. She lived in Paris in the fifth century and became a figure of deep devotion. She was buried here as well, and pilgrims soon came to her tomb. Over time, people simply called the church by her name. The abbey of Saint Genevieve was born, and she became the patron saint of Paris.

Much of what we know about Genevieve comes from early religious writings, so it mixes history with tradition. According to the most famous story, in 451 Attila and his Huns marched toward Paris. Frightened residents prepared to flee. Genevieve, the tale says, urged them to stay and pray instead. The army turned away from the city. Another account describes her bringing grain to a hungry Paris during a siege. True in every detail or not, Parisians held on to these stories for centuries.

In the Middle Ages, the abbey grew in power and wealth. In the twelfth century, it was reformed and placed in the hands of Augustinian canons. These were priests who lived together under a shared rule, a little like monks. The abbey controlled land, collected rents and ran its own courts. Around it, a whole neighbourhood of streets and houses grew up under its authority.

Here is a detail that many visitors miss. This hill was a cradle of the University of Paris. In the early twelfth century, the philosopher Peter Abelard taught on these slopes. Students crowded in to hear him debate the great questions of faith and logic. The schools on this hill, along with those near Notre-Dame, helped create the university. That is why the area is still full of students today, nearly nine centuries later.

Now look for the tall tower rising above the walls on rue Clovis. Locals call it the Tour Clovis, the Clovis Tower. It is the bell tower of the old abbey church, and it is the main survivor of the abbey above ground. Its lower levels are Romanesque, the heavy, round-arched style of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its upper levels are Gothic, with taller and lighter forms. You are looking at two building periods stacked on top of each other.

The tower now stands inside the grounds of the Lycée Henri-IV, one of the most selective secondary schools in France. The school moved into the former abbey buildings after the French Revolution. Parts of the old monastery, including cloister spaces and the old refectory, still serve the school today. The lycée is a working school, so it is not normally open to visitors. From the street, though, the tower is easy to see.

So what happened to the church itself? In the eighteenth century, the old building was in poor condition. King Louis XV fell seriously ill in 1744 and vowed to build a new church for Genevieve if he recovered. He did. The architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot designed a vast new church nearby. That building is the domed monument you can see at the top of the hill. During the Revolution it became the Panthéon, a burial place for great French citizens rather than a church for the saint.

The Revolution was hard on the abbey. The community was dissolved, and in 1793 the saint's relics were burned in public. In the early nineteenth century, the old abbey church was torn down. A new street was cut through the site, and it was named rue Clovis — after the king buried beneath it. Stand on this street and you are walking roughly where the nave of the church once stood.

The abbey's library had a better fate. Its collections passed into what is now the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, the Saint Genevieve Library, across the square from the Panthéon. Its building, designed by Henri Labrouste, opened in the mid-nineteenth century. Inside, slender iron arches carry the roof of a long reading room. It was one of the first major public buildings in Paris to show its iron structure so openly. The library is still a working research library, used by students every day.

Next to the tower, you will also see the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. It was built as a parish church for the people who lived around the abbey. Today it holds a shrine to Genevieve, with a stone said to come from her original tomb. Inside, look for the rood screen, a carved stone gallery that crosses the church. It is the last surviving example of its kind in Paris, and many visitors walk past without noticing how rare it is.

Before you leave rue Clovis, look for one more fragment. A section of old rough stone wall stands along the street. It is part of the city wall built for King Philip Augustus around the year 1200. So within a few steps you have a medieval tower, a medieval wall, a royal burial site and a Revolutionary street name. As you walk downhill, listen to the students and the bells. The abbey is gone, but this hill is still doing what it did for centuries — teaching, praying and remembering.