The Seine quays did used to be a lovely and evocative place to stroll “down by the riverside” through central Paris. But in the last few years a motorway has disfigured them alternately along the Right and Left Banks – bringing clouds of exhaust fumes and decibel overkill – and the still-walkable stretches tend to be overrun with barge restaurants, trash and… runners.

The present Municipal authorities are trying to clean up the Seine’s act, but progress is slow. If you want to ramble through a quiet Parisian waterside haven, don’t wait for them to finish the job: head up the Arsenal Basin and then the Canal St. Martin. Here’s a two-hour stroll through that still-tranquil water-embellished cityscape.

Begin by going down the stairs leading from near the corner of blvd. Morland and blvd. Bourdon (both named for Napoleonic officers killed at the Austerlitz battle in 1805) to the tranquil quay. Way back, the Basin was an arm of the Seine, converted in the 14th century to be a moat for the Bastille, part of the city rampart built under King Charles V. In fact, the wall you have just come down (western side of the basin) is the only open-air remnant of that 650-year-old rampart, beefed up nearly three centuries later by Louis XIII.

The “Arsenal” in question was inexplicably situated nearby (imagine an atomic warhead factory in midtown-Manhatten!) and obligingly… blew up on July 19th 1538, taking with it a good part of the neighborhood.

Once linked to the Canal St-Martin, which was built 1822-1825 as an alternate shipping route (entering Paris from the north-east) to the turbulent Marne River, the Basin became a commercial port. Almost until the end of the 20th century, it specialized in bathroom fixtures, and strollers then sauntered through an obstacle course of sinks, toilets, bathtubs and bidets. Finally deemed unbearably unseemly, this function was replaced by a pleasure boat harbor in 1983. Today it boasts no less than 180 moorings for motor and sail craft ranging in length from six to 15 meters.

An official report states that 70% of the harbor’s traffic is due to foreign boats. But any longtime stroller here can tell you that “traffic” is something of a misnomer. It implies coming and going, while many of the boats here are permanent if floating homes that haven’t budged much for years, inhabited by varied human fauna ranging from French yuppies and retired Brits to “normal” families with children and at least one sculptor who sells his creations right off his foredeck.

I seldom linger long here because of… sheer jealousy. Well before the Port de Plaisance was created, I lived on a Seine-borne cutter tied up just below the American Church on the Quai d’Orsay. The mooring there could be lovely and evocative as mentioned above; but it was marred by the summer stench and the rough ride caused year-round by Bateaux Mouche arriving at and leaving from their base just across the river. I would have gladly traded it for the tranquillity of the Arsenal Basin!

At the northern end of the Arsenal quay, climb the stairs that lead to place de la Bastille. That fortress, a much-vaunted national symbol and thus subject of not a few overly imaginative legends, was be covered in a recent Paris Eiffel Tower News article.

Now, take the Métro from Bastille (Direction: Balard) four stops to La République. From there, walk north-east along the rue du Faubourg du Temple two blocks until you reach the narrow elongated public gardens that cap the Canal St-Martin’s underground stretch. Here you are 26 metres and nine locks above the Arsenal Basin. One of the locks is found a block’s walk to your left, where the Canal emerges into broad daylight. With any luck, a boat will be going through it and you’ll be able to admire the work of the machinery, recently refurbished but dating back to the 19th century.

Until the Renaissance, French river boats had to bounce up- and down-stream over low damns, with damage often resulting. Then came, from Italy it seems, the idea of building locks composed of chambers with gates at both ends that enabled craft to enter, then rise or fall gently, before exiting the other end. It is thought that Leonardo da Vinci brought the technique to France when hired by the French Court.

Originally conceived by Napoleon I not only for transport purposes, but also to quench Parisians’ under-sated thirst (yuck…), the Canal St. Martin still provides half the city’s non-drinking water for cleaning streets, sprinkling public gardens, etc.

Two blocks further north-west along the Canal, take ave. Richerand to your right. It’s appropriately named for a surgeon of two centuries ago since, one block inland, you come upon the magnificent 17th century St. Louis Hospital.

Early in the 1600s, a plague epidemic killed some 68,000 people at the Hôtel Dieu Hospital alone, then Paris’ only large health facility and located city center cheek-by-jowl with Notre Dame cathedral. Henri IV had the St. Louis Hospital (named for the 13th century king who died – probably of the plague – when on crusade) built beginning 1607 outside the city walls to avoid contagion.

After admiring its soberly charming 17th century architecture, reminiscent of the Ile St. Louis (where that king took an oath to go on the crusade that killed him), check the layout. The Hospital was, in fact, designed as a kind of prison (fear of contagion, again) with an inner group of buildings reserved for the sick and surrounded by an outer perimeter meant to keep them – up to three per bed - safely isolated inside.

In his Le Paris Ridicule, moralist-wag Claude le Petit remarked:

Voici la maison de la peste.

Pourquoi faut-il, pays foutu,

Donner un palais à la peste

Et laisser pester la vertu ?

The rhymes are impossible to render, but the meaning is - freely :

Here is the house of the plague.

Why oh why, wayward country,

Give the plague a palace

And plague virtue?

Trivial pursuit: the St. Louis Hospital was, in 1818, the first public building in Paris to use gas for lighting purposes.

Leaving the Hospital by one of its north-western gates, you come to rue de la Grange aux Belles. Its etymology has been variously explained. While specialists agree that the grange (“barn”) in question was some kind of large building, some affirm that the belles (another spelling is pelles or “shovels”) were a measure of the wood unloaded at the lumber depot located where the foot of this street abuts onto the canal St. Martin. More mischievous toponymists suggest that the belles recall the “beauties” with whom the depot workers and lumber boat mariners disported themselves. Take your pick!

Turning right, you come to 102 quai Jemmapes, the Hôtel du Nord. This is where the movie masterpiece of the same name by Marcel Carné, still a classic of le cinema français, was shot in 1938. Very few French people will not smile on hearing actress Arletty’s rejoinder from that film, delivered in an oft-repeated but inimitable Parisian accent: “’Atmosphère’, Est-ce que j’ai une gueule d’’atmosphère’? “ ( ”’Cozy feeling’! Does my mug look like it’s got a ‘cozy feeling’?”)

Continue now up quai Jemmapes to the place de Stalingrad, named for that turning-point battle of World War II. There was perhaps also an ironic wink at history in placing the name of that Soviet martyr city at this crossroads, since it was just here that, in 1814, the anti-Napoleon Allies took the surrender of Paris. Among them were Russian troops, whose presence seems to have been forgotten long-since. Yes, but the Parisians should be reminded that they’re using a word bequeathed by those Russian occupiers almost daily. The Russians found café service rather slow and tended to shout “fast! fast!” – Bystro! Bystro!, whence… bistrot.

The handsome, palladian-style round building (Rotonde) nearby was built in 1789 by architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Like his structures at Denfert-Rochereau and place des Nations, it served as a customs house – here to levy duty on goods shipped into Paris via the Basin de la Villette just to the north of you and thence down the Canal St. Martin. These buildings were part of a perimeter erected for taxation rather than defensive purposes, and caused the following play on words: Le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant, meaning, freely again - and unfortunately, without the rhymes –, “The wall walling Paris makes Paris wail.”

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^* The Arsenal Basin and Canal St. Martin are the theme of but one of the sixteen personalized strolls Paris-based Arthur Gillette guides to help visitors discover “Paris Through The Ages.” If interested in taking one, or more, contact him on Armedv@aol.com.