The Haut Marais, rue de Bretagne and its market of 1615, the Carreau du Temple. More residential than the south, livelier in the evening — we guide buyers and sellers here.
In 1615 Louis XIII charged two commissioners with opening a market to feed the new residents of the Marais. They bought land at the corner of rue de Bretagne and rue de Berry: the Petit Marché du Marais was born. It would take the name of the Enfants-Rouges hospice — red being the colour of the orphans' clothing — founded in 1536 by Marguerite de Valois. Four centuries later it is the oldest covered market in Paris, and it is still working. The quarter grew around it, and has kept its scale.
Older blocks on a narrow plot pattern, a few private mansions, and workshop volumes inherited from the quarter's trades. More varied than the southern Marais, with floor areas sometimes unexpected behind modest fronts.
The Enfants-Rouges market on rue de Bretagne, the food shops, the Carreau du Temple with its late nineteenth-century ironwork, the square du Temple. Residents have their habits here and know one another.
This is the nuance that counts. The Haut Marais is more residential than the place des Vosges, less crossed by day and livelier in the evening. We show you that difference street by street.
A younger clientele than in the historic Marais, often Parisian, drawn by the galleries, the restaurants and the scale of the quarter. And buyers attached to that scale, rare so close to the centre.
The market occupies 39 rue de Bretagne, which crosses the quarter from west to east and concentrates the shops. The Carreau du Temple and the square du Temple close the whole to the north; the Picasso museum, in the Hôtel Salé, and the Carnavalet museum are a few streets south. We measure here in minutes on foot to the market and in the real quiet of the street, because the quarter changes character from one axis to the next.
You shop on rue de Bretagne on Sunday morning, walk up towards the Carreau du Temple, and come home past the galleries.
Floor, aspect, view, lift, reception volume. In the 16th, two apartments in the same building are not lived in the same way.
Our network of owners, notaires and introducers tells us about properties before they are listed. At these addresses, most of it is settled in advance.
We visit, check true orientation, the quality of the building, how the floors are arranged and what the co-ownership allows.
Through to completion, with the same rigour as in the Pays Basque — one contact, from the first call to the handover of keys.
Because no prestige property comes down to an average. Two neighbouring houses on plots of identical size are not worth the same if one faces south and the other sits in shade. We assess exact location, orientation, plot, features and scarcity — a bespoke valuation, never a price grid.
That is precisely its strength. The market, the food shops, the schools and the square make a complete neighbourhood life, and the sector is less crossed by day than the southern Marais. Many of our clients arrive for a few years and stay.
More than people imagine. The plot pattern is narrow, but former workshop volumes and certain divided mansions offer rare floor areas. They come to market seldom and are often handled before listing.
It is one of our particularities: we are established in both territories. Whether your plans concern one, the other or both, you have the same adviser from first conversation to completion — which avoids mismatched timings and makes coordination far simpler.
One call is enough to frame your project in aux Enfants-Rouges, whether buying or selling. We reply personally within 48 hours, in complete confidence.
07 86 71 33 13Les Enfants-Rouges is one of the Paris addresses we work in. We cover many others — as far as the Pays Basque and Bordeaux — and we hold a certain idea of what this profession should be, better told elsewhere than on this page.
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