Not far from the banks of the Seine and the Pont de l'Alma - made famous by the memorial erected in honor of Princess Diana Spencer, who died in a fatal accident coming out of the Pont de l'Alma tunnel - the Alma-Marceau station is one of the best-known on line 9, yet few people know the significance of its name!
First of all, a bit of history: the station opened on May 27, 1923 (according to Wikipedia) with the very first extension of line 9, to Saint-Augustin. It was at this point that it was decided to name the station Alma-Marceau: Alma for its proximity to the bridge and Place de l'Alma, both of which commemorate the Battle of Alma, which resulted in the Franco-British alliance's victory over the Russians in 1854 during the Crimean War (1853-1856). The second part of the metro station's name is "Marceau ", in honor of General François Séverin Marceau-Desgravier (1769-1796), who fought against the Vendée rebels during the Vendée War, a civil war that pitted republicans against royalists during the French Revolution between 1793 and 1796.
If you'd like to discover the illustrious people or historical facts behind the names of Parisian metro stations, you'll also love :
Who is Monsieur Bienvenüe, after whom the metro station is named?
If you take the Paris metro on lines 6, 13, 4 or 12, you may have already got off at Montparnasse-Bienvenüe station, where you usually stop to enter the Montparnasse station in the south of Paris. But why call the station that? [Read more]
If you regularly take line 13 on the Saint-Denis Université branch, you're used to passing Guy Moquêt station, in the 17th arrondissement. Behind the name of the station, there's above all the name of a Parisian high-school pupil, whose story we'd like you to discover. [Read more]
Who is Monsieur Bienvenüe, after whom the metro station is named?
Do you know Guy Moquêt, the high school student who gave his name to the metro station?
