DETOUR: KNOWLEDGE OF THE PAST BRINGS AN EXTRA DIMENSION

DISCOVERING "LES TISSUS FRANÇAIS" MEANS PASSING THROUGH A 17TH-CENTURY SLUM FOR VERY PARTICULAR CRIME 

Adapted from a Google map

     Paris in 1530 / zoom

• It was still further from the center than rue du Bout du Monde.* Even there, police did not venture.

*"Street at the end of the world"

     Adapted from a plan of 1676 / zoom

• The neighborhood became one of the planet's most elegant: The next page shows why.

          Boulevard Saint-Denis by Jean Béraud, toward 1890 / zoom

• Rue Beauregard ("beautiful view") refers to the slope from which one saw the countryside beyond the city wall, and rue de Cléry, which connected neighboring gates, brought the name Le Sentier ("The Path").

• That slope comes from garbage dumped at the extreme edge of town, plus rubble from the rampart's demolition (in 1674).

Police absence in this distant, sordid slum drew people who wished to be left alone, as at Saint-Germain.

France's most notorious serial killer, poisoner Catherine La Voisin, lived on n° 24 of this street and was arrested on the steps of this church:

   Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle

# # #

For that story please click, 

and for how the area became world-known for elegance,

please read on.  

*    *    *

Next, 

 Detour: the Boulevards, once luxury's planetary heart