Square des Saint-Simoniens

The Square des Saint-Simoniens sits atop a hill in Menilmontant, marked by a low stone wall and a dense cluster of trees that hides the neighborhood’s steep, winding streets. This small park sits on land once owned by the followers of Henri de Saint-Simon, a nineteenth-century philosopher who envisioned a society led by engineers and scientists. His disciples lived here as a commune, wearing blue tunics and working the garden, before police broke up their assembly for violating public morality in eighteen thirty-two.