Rue de l'Abbaye
 
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| Length | 180 m (590 ft) |
|---|---|
| Width | 7.80 m (25.6 ft) between rue de l'Echaudé and rue Cardinale; 9.74 m for the remaining |
| Arrondissement | 6th |
| Quarter | Saint-Germain-des-Prés |
| From | 18 rue de l'Echaudé |
| To | 1 place Saint-Germain des Prés and 37 rue Bonaparte |
| Construction | |
| Completion | c. 18th century |
Rue de l'Abbaye is a commercial street in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, named after the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It has a length of some 170m and runs from the Rue Guillaume Apollinaire to the Rue de l'Echaudé. The street itself dates from 1800 although the land it runs over has a much longer history.
The area is served by the following stations of the Paris Métro:
The Benedictine abbey was founded by Childebert, son of Clovis, in 543 to house relics brought from the siege of Saragossa the previous year. These included the tunic of Saint-Vincent and a cross of gold from Toledo; in consequence, the church and abbey were originally known as Saint-Vincent and Sainte-Croix. The church was founded somewhat later in 557 by Germain, Bishop of Paris, who was buried there in 576. A small market town grew up around the religious centre which became a place of pilgrimage and whose name changed to Saint-Germain-des-Prés ("of the meadows") in the 9th century. The Merovingian kings of France were also buried here — the tombs all disappearing during the French Revolution.
Around 1000 a new Romanesque church with three bell towers was built. Two of these were knocked down in 1821 due to their state of decomposition from the saltpetre in the gunpowder stored there during the French Revolution. The third bell tower still remains.
The abbot's palace (Palais Abbatial), commissioned by Charles de Bourbon in 1586, is still occupied (Nos 1-5). The abbot's garden also exists to this day and was the scene of one of the most sombre episodes of the French Revolution, the September Massacres of the 2nd to 5 September 1792.
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