Ancienne Église Saint-Martin des Champs

The former priory church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs is among the oldest surviving religious structures in Paris, its origins rooted in a chapel founded in 1079 under King Henry I of France. The Romanesque choir, built in the 12th century, is one of the last examples of that style still standing within the city limits. The Benedictine priory once sat in open fields north of medieval Paris — hence 'des Champs' — and lent its name to the long Rue Saint-Martin, which traces a Roman road stretching toward Soissons. Dissolved during the French Revolution, the monastic complex was absorbed into the newly created Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in 1794; only the church and the Gothic refectory survived. Today the church sits quietly in a courtyard of the CNAM campus in the 3rd arrondissement, classified as a historic monument yet largely bypassed by visitors — offering a rare encounter with genuinely ancient Paris in near solitude.