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La Bourse, France’s national stock exchange, stands at the centre of this compact district - the smallest Arrondissement in the city.

To the west, Rue de la Paix is one of the ritziest streets in the city, lined with jewellery stores and the boutiques of world-famous fashion names - much of this area around the foot of the Opera house is similiarly wealthy. Just north of La Bourse, a connecting series of 19th century ‘passages’ - narrow, covered and ornately decorated pedestrian shopping streets - offer some of the capital’s most interesting browsing. Place des Victoires, directly south of the Stock Exchange, is one of the city’s grandest squares.

But move barely a kilometre to the Eastern side of the district and the arrondissement changes fairly drastically. The eastern streets are packed one after another with small, fashion and fabric wholesalers, who together steal a fair part of the quarter’s atmosphere. While Rue Montorgeuil may be a charming market street, famously painted by Monet, nearby Rue St Denis has been the heart of Paris sex trade for centuries. While the more famous red light district in the 18th is something of a tourist show, the sex on offer here is very real.

More Paris districts:

1st - Louvre 2nd - Bourse 3rd - Temple 4th - Islands 5th - Latin Quarter 6th - St Germain 7th - Eiffel Tower 8th - Champs Elysees 9th - Opera 10th - Gare du Nord Suburbs - les Banlieues

11th - Bastille 12th - Bercy 13th - Bibliotheque Nationale 14th - Montparnasse 15th - Vaugirard 16th - Trocadero 17th - Batignolles 18th - Montmartre 19th - Buttes-Chaumont 20th - Belleville Suburbs - La Defense