Passage du Grand Cerf

You are approaching the Passage du Grand Cerf, a high-ceilinged corridor that serves as a quiet vertical sanctuary in the middle of the busy second arrondissement. Its name comes from the old Hotel du Grand Cerf, or the Big Deer Inn, which occupied this site before the French Revolution. That inn later became a bustling stagecoach station, serving as the final destination for the royal mail coaches that traveled from eastern France. In eighteen twenty-five, the old station buildings were cleared away to make room for this covered arcade.