Barbès-Rochechouart is a station of the Paris Métro, accommodating

Line 2 and Line 4 at the point where the 9th, 10th, and 18th arrondissements

all share a single point.

 

This is also where the three boulevards, Boulevard de la Chapelle,

Boulevard de Rochechouart, and Boulevard de Magenta, intersect at street level.

 

The elevated line-2 station was opened on 31 January 1903 as the Boulevard Barbès

station, as part of the extension of line 2 from Anvers to Bagnolet (now called

Alexandre Dumas). It was renamed to its current name eight days later.

 

The underground line-4 station was opened on 21 April 1908 as part of the first

section of the line from Châtelet to Porte de Clignancourt.

 

The station is named for the revolutionary, Armand Barbès, and the abbess, Marguerite de Rochechouart.

The disastrous fire of 10 August 1903 that resulted in eighty deaths at Couronnes station began here.

 

Also, in 1941, Colonel Pierre-Georges Fabien shot and killed a German soldier in the station, marking

the beginning of the armed Rêsistance in Paris.

 

The station is the former location of the Barrière Poissonnière, a gate in the Wall of the Farmers-General

built for the collection of excise taxes (the octroi). The gate was built between 1784 and 1788, and it

was demolished in the nineteenth century.