CITÉ DE L'ERMITAGE

The Cité de l'Ermitage is a narrow, private alleyway paved with uneven cobblestones that disappears between two unremarkable apartment buildings. It remains a surviving remnant of the old village of Belleville, back when this hillside existed entirely apart from Paris. In eighteen seventy, the revolutionary Gustave Flourens hid here while organizing the local resistance. He gathered workers from the neighboring workshops to rally against the imperial government, using the cramped, winding passage to evade the police who struggled to navigate the maze.