Place Marcel Aymé Paris: The Wall-Incrusted Statue in Montmartre

Place Marcel Aymé Paris is a Montmartre point of interest marked by a statue incrusted in a wall. The statue was made for Marcel Aymé, the French novelist and playwright who also wrote screenplays and works for children.

What is Place Marcel Aymé in Paris?

Place Marcel Aymé is the place where you find this wall-incrusted statue dedicated to Marcel Aymé. French actor Jean Marais sculpted it for his friend Aymé, connecting the square directly to the writer rather than to a general Montmartre landmark.

When you look at the wall, you are looking at a physical tribute to a writer whose work crossed several forms: novels, plays, screenplays and writing for children. The statue gives Place Marcel Aymé its specific identity and makes the writer's connection to this Montmartre location visible.

What is the statue in Montmartre?

The statue depicts the wall-walking figure associated with Marcel Aymé's short story The Man Who Walked Through Walls. Aymé was living in the building in 1941 when he wrote the story, so the wall at Place Marcel Aymé carries a direct connection to the setting around the writer's life and work.

The story centres on Dutilleul, an ordinary clerk at the Ministry of Records who discovers that he can walk through walls. His adventures include tormenting his boss, committing robberies and escaping prison through walls. After falling in love with a married woman, he loses his extraordinary ability while trying to leave her home and becomes stuck in a wall, forever weeping for what he has lost.

What should you look for at Place Marcel Aymé?

Look closely at the figure incrusted in the wall, and use that physical detail to read the place through the story: Dutilleul is not represented beside the wall, but caught in it. That is the detail that makes Place Marcel Aymé more than a literary reference on a street sign.

A local legend adds a nocturnal detail to the statue. It suggests that if you pass by at midnight on a cold winter's night, you can hear the figure's eternal lament. You do not need to treat the legend as a fact to understand why the wall deserves your attention: it gives the statue's fixed position in the masonry a story of its own.

You can encounter Place Marcel Aymé as stop 8 of 16 on Life as an Impressionist Artist in 1880s Montmartre. Save the place for your Montmartre walk, then open the Montmartre route when you are ready to explore it.