Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix: The Giant of Ménilmontant
Why is it significant?
Stand at the foot of the wide stone stairs and tilt your head back. The church rises above you like a cliff, with a tall bell tower pointing straight up the slope. For a neighbourhood of workshops, tenements and cheap cafés, it is almost absurdly big... and that was exactly the point.
Key Facts
| Place | Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix: The Giant of Ménilmontant |
|---|---|
| Address | 3 Place de Ménilmontant, 75020 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.86860, 2.38740 |
| Part of Walk | Rebel Hill: Buttes-Chaumont, Belleville & the Secrets of Père-Lachaise in Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand at the foot of the wide stone stairs and tilt your head back. The church rises above you like a cliff, with a tall bell tower pointing straight up the slope. For a neighbourhood of workshops, tenements and cheap cafés, it is almost absurdly big... and that was exactly the point.
This is Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix de Ménilmontant, built between 1863 and 1880, just after the hamlet of Ménilmontant had been swallowed by Paris along with Belleville. The population of these slopes was exploding with workers pouring in from the provinces, and the tiny old chapel could not hold them. So the city gave them one of the largest churches in Paris, a statement in stone that the new eastern districts would not be forgotten.
Not everyone here felt grateful. Ménilmontant, like Belleville, was famously anticlerical and fiercely republican. During the Commune of 1871 several churches of eastern Paris were taken over by political clubs, where workers met in the evenings under the vaults to argue about the future of the city. Few places in Paris show so clearly the tension between the Church and the people it was built to serve.
The square in front of you is named after a local boy. Maurice Chevalier was born in Ménilmontant in 1888, into a poor family, and started singing in the cafés of the quarter before he became the very image of the Parisian charmer in Hollywood films. And in 1938 Charles Trenet wrote a song simply called Ménilmontant, a love letter to the steep streets and the light of this hill, which every French grandmother can still hum.
If you have ever seen The Red Balloon, the short film of 1956 about a little boy followed everywhere by a stubborn red balloon, you have already been here. It was shot in the streets of Ménilmontant and Belleville, and many of the alleys you see in it have since been demolished. Now walk down the Rue de Ménilmontant to the boulevard, turn left, and follow it to the square by the Père-Lachaise metro station, where the cemetery wall begins.