The Paris Rose Line
Is There Really a Rose Line in Paris?
Comte de Saint-Germain
Long before Netflix's Emily in Paris generated a lot of excited location-hunting tourists (and some teeth-gnashing Parisians), Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code did the same. While the book proudly claims that locations & works of art mentioned in the story are authentic, it is riddled with inaccuracies that were discreetly corrected in the French edition: two museums that cannot be seen from the Louvre Carrousel were removed, and a street that was on the wrong side of town was renamed.
But one thing that did survive these edits is the "Rose Line."
Even spiritual, symbolic treasure hunts need an X on a map, and the key to The Da Vinci Code's map is the Rose Line, which Dan Brown describes as a north-to-south line that goes through a Compass Rose or Wind Rose (i.e., in geographical terms, a meridian). In the Parisian part of the plot, iconic scenes feature frantic searches for this Rose Line in the church of Saint-Sulpice in the 6th arrondissement, and later following it outdoors via brass medallions that run through the city, equating it with the Paris meridian. A brass line does exist in Saint-Sulpice, and the medallions, too - they're just not the same line.
In Saint-Sulpice, the line is part of a gnomon, a device commissioned by the parish priest to precisely identify the date of Easter based on the sun's position. A lens set in a lateral stained glass window was used to project a spot of light on the brass line, moving throughout the year onto different markers until it reached the equinox, which enabled the calculation of Easter.
Tracing the Steps.
While the lens is gone, the line is still there, embedded on the marble floor across the church's transept and vertically on an engraved obelisk.
It does run from north to south, making it a true meridian. It is also a great way to visualize that Saint-Sulpice isn't perfectly oriented along cardinal points, as it would have required more land than the local parish could afford when the church was expanded.
Traces of the previous, smaller church are still visible underground and properly aligned with the "Rose Line." However, following the very same line above ground, outside of the church, will not lead you to the famed medallions: they are located 115 meters east of it, on a different meridian.
Arago: The Paris Meridian
Parisians do not call these medallions the Rose line but rather the "Arago medallions" or "the Paris meridian." François Arago was the chief scientist of the Paris Observatory, who conducted detailed measurements of the Paris meridian in the 1820s. However, the date of the first measurement goes back almost 150 years earlier to 1667, and the foundation of the Observatory was built on the meridian.
It only became visible on the ground throughout Paris in 1994 when Dutch artist Jan Dibbets created the medallions as an "Hommage à Arago." Why no tribute until 1994? There was already a tribute to Arago opposite the Observatory in the form of a statue. But if you go there today, you will see only an empty plinth, as the statue was melted down during the occupation of Paris to support the German war effort.
To honor Arago's legacy while remembering the statue's disappearance and acknowledging the fact that a meridian is an imaginary line, Dibbets generated an invisible monument in the form of a city-wide art installation: 135 medallions inscribed with "Arago" and the letters N and S for “nord" and “sud." Mentioning the medallions in the Da Vinci Code was fine, but showing them in the film adaptation raised an issue: as a recent piece by a living artist (and not a century-old monument), its usage rights still belonged to Dibbets. After legal action, the bronze "Rose Line" generated an undisclosed amount of Hollywood gold for the artist.
Medallion-hunting along the Paris meridian is a fun activity. Every now and then, Parisians see confused looks at the ground, as many of the medallions have been stolen, never replaced after roadwork, or just covered in asphalt. The only "safe" medals are in protected areas - inside the Louvre museum or on the grounds of the Observatory, which is not normally open to the public.
However, part of the Observatory's gardens are now publicly accessible and contain an actual physical representation of the meridian line and even a surprise statue of Arago!
Point Zero, Paris
Funnily enough, Dibbet's idea was co-opted by architect Paul Chemetov in 2000 to create not a Rose Line but a Green Line, "la méridienne verte," extending the Paris meridian through France. Its brass medallions are much larger than the Arago ones and are often located on meter-high stone pillars, sometimes used as ashtrays or makeshift trash cans. They are sometimes accompanied by vertical green signs and usually found near green spaces such as Parc Montsouris, as the idea was to plant trees all along the meridian and across the entire country.
Associating the words "green" and "meridian" may remind you of the more famous Greenwich meridian, which won the title of reference meridian, or zero point of reference for universal time, in 1884. France's astronomers and geographers were no match for the UK's naval and colonial might at the time.
While the "Hommage à Arago" may be disappearing, and the Paris meridian may have lost its international reference status, a third invisible "Rose Line" going through a Compass Rose is about to reappear.
Further east of Saint-Sulpice & the Louvre, embedded on the floor in brass and stone in front of Notre-Dame cathedral since 1924, is the zero point from which all French road distances are measured. Astronomers did not hide it away, nor was it stolen by unscrupulous land art dealers; it was temporarily rendered invisible by the barbed wire and metal walls protecting the renovations. As the footprint of the construction site is expected to reduce over time, maybe this rose will be unveiled by the next time you're in Paris...
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Episode 1: Around Montsouris
You may have heard of this 14th district park, but the surrounding arrondissement has an incredible history: nearly 2000 years of ruins, visible from its streets, and locals ranging from the first Black star of Montparnasse (before Josephine Baker!) to a leftist lesbian painter who became a heroine of the Resistance during WWII.
Episode 2: Above the Catacombs
This brand new tour will take you on a part of the Paris meridian, and on the footsteps of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, above the underground locations that were used to film a very special episode of the hit Netflix series.
Learn about the legal & not-so-legal uses of the catacombs over more than five centuries.
More about the Count
The Count of St. Germain invites you to unique walks through Paris. Let his voice and your smartphone’s GPS guide you to (re)discover the City of Lights, embracing the authenticity and subjectivity of a person who actually experienced the events they’re recounting.
