Place du Tertre
At the top of the Butte, Place du Tertre is a cobbled square roughly the size of a tennis court, ringed by easels. Every square metre of pavement is spoken for: painters working in oils, caricaturists with a fast hand, portrait artists who can catch a likeness in twenty minutes. The square has been the geographic and social heart of Montmartre village since 1635, and the surrounding buildings — many from the 17th and 18th centuries — still carry the proportions of a provincial French town rather than a capital city.
At its centre, a fountain is watched over by a statue of Saint-Denis holding his own severed head. La Mère Catherine, the restaurant on the square's edge, has been feeding people here since 1793. The competition for an artist's pitch — roughly three square feet, shared on alternating days — runs a waiting list of about ten years.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to arrive early, around 10am, when the artists are just setting up and the tour groups haven't yet crested the hill. Rue Saint-Rustique, the old main street leading off the square toward the hill's highest point, gives you a few minutes of genuine quiet. If you want a portrait, agree on the price before sitting down.
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Book directly at the providerHow Place du Tertre came to be
Montmartre Abbey, founded in 1133 by King Louis VI, shaped the hill for centuries before Place du Tertre opened as the village's central square in 1635. In 1790, No. 3 on the square became Montmartre's first town hall, home to its first mayor, Félix Desportes. On 18 March 1871, the square sat at the ignition point of the Paris Commune, when General Claude Lecomte arrived with troops to recover 171 cannons stored on the Butte.
On Christmas Eve 1898, Louis Renault drove his first automobile up the hill to this square — an event later credited with marking the birth of the French automobile industry. From the late 18th century through to the First World War, the square drew painters, poets and songwriters; Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani and Utrillo all worked in the neighbourhood. In 1920, the Free Commune was founded at No. 21 to preserve Montmartre's traditions; it now houses the local tourist office.
Who and what shaped it
People who shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons — mild enough to linger while a portrait is drawn. Winter thins the crowds and quiets the square considerably, though fewer artists work in the cold. Summer brings the heaviest foot traffic; August in particular, when Parisian businesses often close, can make the square feel more like a transit point than a village square.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.