Quai Voltaire

Formerly part of the Quai Malaquais, then later known as the Quai des Théatins, the Quai Voltaire is now home to some of the most important antique dealers in Paris. It is also noted for its attractive 18th-century houses and for the famous people who lived in many of them, making it an especially interesting and pleasant street to walk along. The 18th-century Swedish ambassador Count Tessin lived at No.1, as did the sculptor James Pradier, famed for his statues and for his wife, who swam naked across the Seine. Louisse de Kéroualle, spy for Louis XIV and created Duchess of Portsmouth by the infatuated Charles II of england, lived at Nos. 3-5. Famous past residents of No. 19 included the composers Richard Wagner and Jean Sibelius., the novelist Charles Baudelaire, and the exiled Irish writer and wit Oscar Wilde. The French philosopher Voltaire died at No. 27, the Hôtel de la Villette. St-Sulpice, the local church, refused to accept his corpse (on the grounds of his atheism) and his body was rushed into the country to avoid a pauper's grave.