Paris:- Saturday, 15. February 1997:- Since finding out that Marie de Médicis had a hand in the residential subdivision of the Ile Saint-Louis just over a week ago, my curiosity-level about the Place des Vosges has jumped considerably.

Yesterday the weather was foul when I would have normally gone, but today it is the blue and white 'Ile-de-France' sky overhead; and if I get there in time I might 'beat' the threatening grey in it.

Paris can be thought of as having considerable parks - the Bois de Boulogne for example - but the city certainly lacks smaller neighborhood parks. The Places des Vosges is the only sizeable public park in the third and fourth arrondissements, in the eastern Marais, close to the Bastille. As such, it is a welcome oasis within a large area of old stone.

'Marais' means swamp and in the 13th century it lay on either side of the raised rue Saint-Antoine, an old Roman-era highway. Monks and Templars cleared the swamp, apparently because Philippe Auguste's wall had brought the district within the city walls.

The rue Saint-Antoine was used for jousting and on 29. June 1559, the unlucky Gabriel de Montgomery wounded King Henri II so seriously that he died on 10. July. Henri's widow, Catherine de Médicis took this event very badly and moved out of the Hôtel des Tournelles and into the Louvre. In 1563, she ordered the demolition of the hôtel that had been started in 1388 by Pierre d'Orgemont. It had been a grand place and six kings as well as the Duke of Bedford had used it as a residence.

The place then became a serious horse market, where one to two thousand animals would change hands on Saturdays. At five on Sunday morning, 27. April 1578, three of Henri III's young turks had a duel with three pals of Henri de Guise, and all were killed or wounded; with Quélus dying 33 days later of 19 dagger wounds.

Henri IV thought, in 1605, of installing some luxury industry in the horse market - such as silk and silver thread makers, as in Milan - and did so on the north side after importing 200 workers from Italy.

However, his ideas kept evolving. Paris had no splendid place for extravagant displays, so it became the Place Royale; with Henri having himself a grand house built at the centre of the south side. The subdivision of the rest took place on 4. June 1605 with considerable deal-making, and the horse traders were ejected in August 1606.

A house similar to Henri's was built on the opposite north side and attributed to the Queen. All the rest of the houses in the place are slightly smaller, but to this day they remain almost as they were built then.

There are 36 houses - there may have been two more that were knocked down for a street access - which is nine on each side of the 140-metre square and except for numbers one and 28, all have four arcades.

Henri IV was killed before the place's inauguration, which took place on the fifth to seven, April 1612, on the occasion of a double-marriage: that of Louis XIII to Anne of Austria, and Princess Elizabeth of France to the future Philippe IV.

There was no tournament but a series of five ballets of horsemen, lead by the Guise family. The Maréchal de Bassompierre and the captain of the King's guards took part, in front of 10,000 spectators. Cannons were fired from the Bastille and 150 musicians added to the ceremony. In the evening, the whole parade of 1,300 horsemen, torches, musicians and 17 tanks left the place to tour Paris while 4,000 rockets were fired from the Bastille.

It was such a good party that it was repeated in 1613, 1614, and 1616. When there wasn't dancing, there were duels; most notably in 27. May 1627 - one dead, one wounded; two fled to England - and on 12. December 1643. This last was not motivated by religion, but by an argument between Madame Montbazon and Madame de Longueville - although the four duelists themselves had serious differences from other affairs of the time.

According to a comment, the manner in which Coligny was killed would be called assassination today, but at the time all the surrounding windows were filled with spectators -including the two ladies in question - spectators who preferred winners to stylists.

Other spectacles took place, including simple robbery. An edict in 1656 attempted to force 'gallant' ladies to parade themselves elsewhere.

According to another edict, there were to be no more than 36 owners. Somehow, the house of Maréchal-Duc de Richelieu had a total of 11 arcades in 1752, only proving what had been known since the inauguration, it was a place 'en vogue.'

The Revolution leveled the interior of the place so it could be used as a training ground for the national guards, and a recruitment office was opened in July 1792. Arms were made in ateliers from 1793 and the place was used as an artillery park in 1848 and 1871.

An interior iron fence, built in 1685 and funded by subscription, was to be knocked down during the Revolution but was saved by the fact of guarding the weapons stored there - and it wasn't gotten rid of until Louis-Philippe had it taken out. Victor Hugo protested eloquently but in vain, and the less than monumental one now in place was installed in 1839.

Louis XIII's grand bronze statue, put up in 1639, was melted down during the Revolution for other uses. The actual statue, in white marble, replaced the original in 1819.

So far this is just a history and description of the place. Instead of relating the histories of the original 36 houses - all of them glorious! - I think I will simply go to number six, the home of Victor Hugo from 1832 to 1848.

The is where Madame Montmorency lived. Several of her friends were beheaded, and she had some grand adventures with the Count of Soissons - among many others - before he died tragically in 1641. She died in 1685 at 81. One of her sons was also beheaded in 1674. The hôtel stayed in the Rohen-Guéménée family until 1784 and it was the largest in the place, as it extended considerably to the rear and had discreet exits.

Victor Hugo lived on the second floor until it was burnt by rebels in 1848. The city acquired it in 1873 and the museum here was inaugurated 30. June 1903. Today's photo is the view from in front of this address on the southest corner.

From an historical-monument point of view, the Place des Vosges is probably unique in Paris, being so relatively unchanged while being as large as it is. Under the arches there are some shops and restaurants, but it is not a seething hive of activity.

Local residents use its park in the centre as the park it is - a square island hole in the mass of surrounding stone of the Marais and a refuge from the bustle of the rue Saint-Antoine.

I think the very aspect that made this place, and the place Vendôme, attractive in other times - its homogeneity, its regularity - is somehow alien to Paris. The whole rest of the city is a hodge-podge of styles and buildings that one can read like history itself.

The Place des Vosges says to me, that this is a country with a central administration capable of plunking a large unit like this into the midst of civilian chaos - it is also about conformity. If you 'conform' to the government's line, you can show it by living in a government-approved row-house. Along this drift, if one compares the relative sizes of places like Vosges to surrounding Paris, then it is possible to deduce that the government's quest for uniformity, was and is a failure.

So here is what you can do. From the south side, take the central exit into the rue de Birague and cross straight over rue Saint-Antoine and go down rue Beautrellis three blocks and turn left. If you then turn right at rue du Petit Musc, you will come out near the Seine and you will see the Pont de Sully.

Crossing it, as I did last week, will put you into another real-estate development. It is the Ile-Saint-Louis, Marie de Médicis' project, done more or less all at once like the Place des Vosges, and it was begun only a couple of years later - supposedly to take the 'overflow from the fashionable' Marais.

A 'Marais,' even drained, is an ex-swamp; but an island in the river is exactly that. I do not know where rents are higher today, but I would guess it is on the island. On a very hot summer day you can tell the difference between the two places too.