Saint-Jacques is a station of the Paris Métro serving line 6 at the Place Saint-Jacques in the 14th arrondissement. The Boulevard Saint-Jacques and the Rue Faubourg Saint-Jacques also intersect the square. It is one of only a few Metro stations that have a combined entrance and ticket hall at street-level.
History
The station opened as part of the former Line 2 South on 24 April 1906, when it was extended from Passy to Place d'Italie. On 14 October 1907 Line 2 South was incorporated into Line 5. It was incorporated into line 6 on 12 October 1942. The station is named after the Rue Faubourg Saint-Jacques, which was originally the Roman road to Orléans and main street of the Roman city of Lutetia. In the Middle Ages it became the pilgimage route of St James (French: Saint-Jacques) from Paris to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Hence the street inside Paris' wall became known as the Rue Saint-Jacques and its extension outside the wall through suburban development (French: Faubourg), became known as the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques. The station was the location of the Barrière Saint-Jacques (known as the Barrière d'Arcueil during the French Revolution), a gate built for the collection of taxation as part of the Wall of the Farmers-General; the gate was built between 1784 and 1788 and demolished in the nineteenth century.[1][2] Saint Jacques station was one of a number of Paris locations of Stanley Donen's 1963 film Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.