Quai de la Rapée () is an above-ground station on Line 5 of the Paris Métro, located near the Pont d’Austerlitz and Gare de Lyon at the western edge of the 12th arrondissement. In 2021, 798,728 passengers entered the metro system here, ranking it 289th out of 371 stations.RATP, “Trafic annuel entrant par station du réseau ferré 2021” [accessed 30aug2025] The name refers to a nearby traffic artery.

Location

The station is located above ground, near and parallel to the Right Bank of the Seine, just southeast of the canal lockKnown as the écluse Morland or écluse Arsenal. that connects the Seine with the Arsenal Basin and Canal Saint-Martin. Since the 1960s, the riverbank adjacent to the station has been occupied by the Voie Mazas segment of the Pompidou motorway. Parallel to the station on its northeast side is the Quai de la Rapée, the older riverside traffic artery that bears this name between the Arsenal Basin and Bercy. Southeast of the station is the Place Mazas (see below) and the Pont d’Austerlitz vehicle bridge, the latter being, like Line 5, a major river crossing. The Gare de Lyon is about 500 meters to the east, usually reached by Line 5 passengers by changing to Line 1 at Bastille.

The Viaduc du Quai de la Rapée (1905-06) addressed one the engineering challenges of the early metro: the sharp 90° curve and steep 4% descent from the Viaduc d’Austerlitz to connect with a subway tunnel on the Right Bank."Viaduct de la Quai de la Rapée," French Wikipedia [website]. No source cited. The city separated the project from the river bridge contract with Constructions de Levallois-Perret, and assigned the work to Dadye et Pillé.Dadye et Pillé was at the same time building for the metro a very different bridge and viaduct at Passy (Bir-Hakeim). For the Rapée viaduct, rather than join rectangular box spans at angles (as was done for the viaducts supporting the above-ground curves on today’s Lines 2 and 6), the firm devised and executed helical spans that closely followed the curve of the track. The solution was ingenious and elegant, but demanding of construction skills and metal, and was never repeated.Jules Herveau, Le Chemin de Fer métropolitain de Paris, tome 2 (Paris, 1908), pp 93ff, 158-169.  Louis Biette, “Le Metropolitain (2eme partie),” La Revue de Paris, 01mai1906, pp 149-150.

The station’s proximity to the Seine resulted in its submergence during the historic flood of 1910.

History A station flanked by water on two sides, in the corner of a neglected public space in an area focused on wholesale commerce was not primarily intended to service local passengers. The station at Place Mazas that appeared in the earliest plans for the Metropolitan was a junction for the two lines routed toward the Austerlitz traffic bridge. One envisaged line ran north from Place d’Italie, crossing the Seine, and joining Line 1 at Gare de Lyon, sharing its tracks to Nation. The future Line 5 running south from Gare de l’Est to Bastille and the Seine would connect with it at Place Mazas.In the 1898 documents authorizing the system, the line from Place d’Italie to Gare de Lyon and Nation was part of Line 2 (aka Section B), the ‘circular’ line following the path of the Exterior Boulevards. Line 5 (aka Section E) was described as running from the Boulevard de Strasbourg towards the Pont d’Austerlitz.

Once Line 1 of the metro proved unexpectedly popular and further construction of the network got underway, however, new political and technical issues soon affected the plans. The track geometry in the Place Mazas sector went through several notional configurations, and the path of the Austerlitz Viaduct was shifted 200 meters upstream. By the time railbeds were laid in 1905, traffic from the Left Bank would take the current Line 5 path: along the river and the west flank of the Saint Martin Canal to Bastille, where travelers bound for Gare de Lyon would transfer to Line 1. The double-tracked tunnel between the riverbank and Line 1 at Gare de Lyon was completed only as a maintenance connection.Jules Herveau, Le Chemin de Fer métropolitain de Paris, tome 1 (Paris, 1903), pp 18-19. The track configuration is mapped at  https://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-paris/index.php?gpslat=48.843292&gpslon=2.370569&zoom=6

The station at Place Mazas came into use in July 1906 with the completion of the Rapée Viaduc. The street entrance was not yet open and the onward line to Bastille unfinished, but the city and the CMP were keen get the long-delayed Left Bank metro connected to Gare de Lyon and the other lines on the Right Bank.The first metro line on the Left Bank had opened just three months earlier, eight years after the system was approved. Three lines had opened on the Right Bank between 1900 and 1904. Until 17 December there was onward service to Gare de Lyon using the maintenance tunnel to a shared Line 1 platform. This was discontinued when Line 5 was opened from Place Mazas to Bastille and Lancry (Jacques Bonsergent).A shuttle was initially used to connect with Gare de Lyon, with passengers changing on the Place Mazas platform. But it was soon found easier just to reverse the (provisionally short 3-car) trains to complete the run. Some have judged that the decision to abandon a direct north-south connection to Gare de Lyon was an error. The station was underserved by the metro system until the late 20th century. Jean Robert, Notre Metro (1983), pp 63, 65-66. Brian Hardy, Paris Metro Handbook (UK, 1993), p 17. Hervieu, tome 2, p 410. 

Relatively few Parisians lived in the neighborhood of Place Mazas in the early 20th century. But it was a traffic hub with tramway routes that radiated into districts on both sides of the Pont d’Austerlitz and river taxis which stopped at the bridge’s footings. The neighborhood west of the Gare de Lyon gradually developed residential, retail, and services. The population of the station’s service area was somewhat enlarged in 1939 with the closure of the Line 5 Arsenal station, midway between Rapée and Bastille.  In recent decades, the area along the Quai de la Rapée has been redeveloped with large residential and office buildings.

The station has had three names.A fourth name, Station Contrescarpe, is sometimes mentioned, the result of internet availability of an erroneously captioned photo postcard of the station during the 1910 flood. The Boulevard de la Contrescarpe, parallel to the east side of the Arsenal Basin, was renamed Boulevard de la Bastille in 1898. While the Boulevard’s old name inevitably remained in popular use for some time afterwards, it was never assigned to the metro station, even on planning maps. “Métropolitain - Métro Paris - Station Contrescarpe,” CPArama.com [blog entry], 01sep2009. Ville de Paris, Nomenclature des Rues (Paris, 1911), p 55. It opened as Place Mazas, the riverside tract through which Line 5 passes and on which is the station’s sole entrance.In the weeks prior to the station’s opening, some residents complained that the name would remind travelers not of the Napoleonic army officer, but of the Mazas Prison, opposite the Gare de Lyon, that had been demolished in 1897. The non-existant “Place d’Austerlitz” was offered as an alternative. Le Matin, 18juin1906. In October 1907 the station was renamed Pont d’Austerlitz, one of several name changes made when the Left Bank circular line between Place de l’Etoile and Place d’Italie (Ligne 2-sud) became part of Line 5. Unfortunately for passengers unfamiliar with the area, the Pont d’Austerlitz has landings on both sides of the Seine, and Austerlitz was becoming a popular name for the mainline railway station and its immediate neighborhood on the Left Bank side of the bridge.Upon its opening in the 1860s the station was called the Gare d’Orléans, as it was the terminal of the Orleans Railway. But after the company in 1900 opened its new central Paris terminal, the Gare d’Orsay, the station was increasingly referred to as Austerlitz, after the nearby traffic bridge. Between the world wars, both names were often used together. The name Orléans was dropped in the 1980s. The neighborhood is today often referred to as Austerlitz, but the district (quartier) remains officially Salpêtrière. In June 1916 the metro station was re-named Quai de la Rapée, probably to alleviate confusion among military personnel transiting Paris. The name refers to the segment of the nearby, centuries-old road paralleling the Seine, between the Arsenal Basin and Bercy. The road was named after Thomas, Sieur de la Rapée, son of Jean le Cop, head of military supply under Louis XV, who established the family seat in the vicinity.Henri Cordier, “Etudes sur le Vieux Paris [Histoire de Bercy],” Journal des Savants, 14/4  (Juin 1916), p 149. Association de l’Inspection générale de l’administration [sic], “Histoire du Quartier du Bercy” (mars 2017), p 30

The Quai de la Rapée station is the primary setting of Alex Joffé’s 1965 heist comedy La Grosse Caisse (The Big Swag). The lead character, Louis Bourdin (Bourvil), is a lowly ticket-puncher at the station who plans a robbery of the nightly train that collects the cash from metro fareboxes. The film used location footage of the station, metro, viaducts, and the Place Mazas area. But the dialogue scenes in the Quai de la Rapée station were shot on a studio set,INA,“Tournage du film: La Grosse Caisse,” (1965). “La Grosse Caisse,” French Wikipedia.  IMDB, “La Grosse Caisse.”  and stand-ins were used for the other stations, the track junction to the RATP coffers, and various outdoor scenes.

Nearby

Place Mazas A 350 meter-long riverside tract bisected by the roadway crossing the Pont d’Austerlitz, the Place was ordered built by Napoleon in 1806. It was to provide a suitably grand, semi-circular, Right Bank landing for the span, one of his three new traffic bridges over the Seine and named after his 1805 victory. The Place, like several streets near the Pont, was named in honor of a superior officer killed in that battle: Colonel Jacques François Marc Mazas.Braibant, Charles, et al, Guide Historique des Rues de Paris (Paris 1965), p 297. “Place Mazas,” French Wikipedia However, the Place was never properly shaped or developed as a public space. During the 19th century it often hosted the spillover from the commercial and transport activities that soon surrounded it. When metro Lines 1 and 5 and the system’s main power generating plant were constructed nearby between 1898 and 1906, materials and equipment were staged here.

But upon their completion the area was beautified and the new viaducts were points of attraction. Except for the water taxi dock, shipping was cleared from the banks of the Seine. The Place was gravelled and trees planted, with access paths to masonry river embankments which replaced the old Port Mazas wharves. The area regressed with the 1910 flood and the temporary return of logistical activities during World War I. But in the 1920s the redbrick city morgue, the Institut médico-légal de Paris, was erected in the curve of the Rapée Viaduct.The site was detached from Place Mazas in 1913, but construction was interrupted by the war. The remainder of the area east of the Pont d’Austerlitz became a small park, today’s Square Albert Tournaire, while the western section around the metro station was laid out as a French-style garden.Tournaire (1862-1958) was a noted architect. The adjacent morgue was one of his designs. Ville de Paris, “Square Albert Tournaire” [website]. “Place Mazas,” Ville de Paris, Dénominations des emprises des voies actuelles [website] Indentifiant: 12194.