KNOWLEDGE OF THE PAST BRINGS AN EXTRA DIMENSION

DISCOVERING "LES TISSUS FRANÇAIS" MEANS PASSING THROUGH A SLUM THAT BECAME WORLD-KNOWN FOR ELEGANCE

               Boulevard Saint-Denis by Jean Béraud, toward 1900 / zoom

"The Boulevards" replace the 15-century city wall.

But rue Beauregard leads to what in the 17th-century was a slum where sorcerers, poisoners and slaughterers of children for black masses settled. 

    Adapted from Mappy

Yellow indicates a site...

It was still further from the center than rue du Bout du Monde.* Police did not venture and marginal people settled there, as in as in 16th-century Saint-Germain.

*"Street at the end of the world"

     Adapted from a plan of 1676 / zoom

Red shows our route.

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

It's a slope because garbage would be deposited next to the city wall. Rubble was added when it was demolished (in 1674).

The slope

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 why the area became world-known for elegance,

please read on.

*    *    *

Next, 

"Les Boulevards," once luxury's planetary heart