THE "COURT OF MIRACLES"

BEYOND THE CEMETERY, NEXT TO THE RAMPART, WAS AN ENCLAVE OF BEGGARS AND THIEVES

Zoom

This illustration shows people who help each other.

It was one of the Court of Miracles that grew up in all large towns after about 1600, with 12 in Paris.

Paris in 1530 / zoom

Red arrow, our walk. Yellow arrow, the Court of Miracles.

The name comes from beggars dropping their crutches and bandages on entering, being miraculously cured. 

Engraving by Jean Lagniet, 1663, zoom

They had a king, an hierarchy, an initiation, taxes and a language.*

 *Argot, which still means slang in French

Lagniet

  

The Hunchback of Notre Dame made this one famous.

Illustration by Gustave Doré

Hugo took poetic license by placing it at the end of the 15th century but his description is based on the main source, of the early 18th.*

*Read online (both in French):

•  Histories and Researches of the Antiquities of the City of Paris by Henri Sauval, 1724.
•  Elites and Wretches. Representations of the 16th and 17th Centuries. 

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When Louis XIV established an efficient police,

its chief's first act was to come with a cannon.

He told the crowd that he would blow up the rampart

and hang anyone still present when the smoke cleared.

He shot a hole through which all the inhabitants fled.

(In 1676)

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