By Jeff Barnes | Vintage Voyagers France
Every time we step through the gates of Paul Bert Serpette, we're walking into one of the most storied corners of the antiques world. It's our favorite stop at the Puces de Saint-Ouen—the dealers are exceptional, the finds are genuinely thrilling, and the energy on a Saturday morning is unlike anywhere else in Paris. But until recently, we never stopped to ask, "Who actually was Paul Bert?"
Turns out, the street the market sits on—rue Paul Bert—is named after one of the most remarkable Frenchmen of the 19th century.
The Man: Paul Bert (1833–1886)
Paul Bert was a physiologist, zoologist, and politician—a true Renaissance figure of the Third Republic. Born in Auxerre in 1833, he studied under Claude Bernard, the father of modern experimental medicine, and became one of France's foremost scientists. His landmark 1878 work La Pression barométrique significantly advanced our understanding of how air pressure affects the human body. He essentially founded the field of aviation medicine—earning him the nickname "Father of Aviation Medicine"—and the phenomenon of oxygen toxicity at high pressure still bears his name: the Paul Bert Effect.
Beyond the lab, Bert was a fierce progressive politician, a close ally of Léon Gambetta, and one of the architects of Jules Ferry's sweeping secular education reforms that reshaped French public schooling. Streets across France were named in his honor after his death in Hanoi in 1886, where he had been posted as resident general of Annam and Tonkin.
A scientist, a statesman, a reformer. It's not a bad name to carry.
The Market: Born from Ragmen and Resourcefulness
The market itself grew from far humbler roots. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Paris expelled its biffins—the ragpickers who roamed the city at night salvaging discarded objects—and they resettled just outside the city walls in Saint-Ouen. By 1885, the flea market there was officially recognized, and a Sunday ritual was born.
The Paul Bert market took shape after World War II, when the Poré family, who owned land on rue Paul Bert, turned a cement garage into a rented space for second-hand dealers. By the early 1950s, the makeshift wooden stalls had gone permanent—concrete and committed.
Then came Alain Serpette. In the early 1970s, the son of a chineur (a picker) and a successful antique arms dealer, Serpette bought a former SIMCA garage next door and began building his own market of 120 stands. He forgot to apply for a building permit. The mayor, recognizing what he was creating, looked the other way. The Serpette market nearly never existed—and yet it became the jewel it is today.
The two markets eventually merged, passed through a succession of celebrated owners—including the Dassault family and the Duke of Westminster—and have been in the hands of Jean-Cyrille Boutmy since 2014.
Why It Matters to Us
When we bring our Vintage Voyagers guests here on our Paris trips, we're not just treasure hunting—we're walking through layers of history. The ragpicker who scavenged post-war streets, the arms dealer who built a market without permission, and the 19th-century scientist whose name graces the street. The alleys hold the light and the objects waiting to be discovered.
Now when someone asks us why we love Paul Bert Serpette, we have even more to say.
Vintage Voyagers France leads curated antique shopping tours in Paris and beyond. Learn more at vintagevoyagersfrance.com
