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La Mouffe! - Rue Mouffetard

By Norman Barth

Paris Kiosque - December 1996 - Volume 3, Number 12
Copyright (c) December 1996 Norman Barth - used with permission
There is a chance that you'll discover this street during your first visit to Paris - then again it may take several years. I fall into the latter category. I was on a walk with two friends, one of whom was showing us some of his old haunts from student days. We turned the corner from R.E. Quénu, walked past the church St. Médard, and started to walk up a narrow street - La Mouffe! After only a few steps I knew this street was something special, and over the years I have discovered just how true that is.


Number 122 - La Bonne Source, a shop sign from 1592.

Rue Moufftard is one of the city's oldest streets - a remnant of an old Roman road to Rome via Lyon. Its 605 meters long, 6 meters wide (ifs thats confusing, then just substitute yards for meters and you'll still get the general idea). According to Jacques Hillairet in his Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris, its current name was decided in the 18th century but first after passing through various stages of defformation. The exact origins are obscure, but at the time, the River Bievre (long since diverted underground through pipes now) flowed nearby and was the home of tanners, wood pulp works, etc whose activities didn't lend themselves to a very pleasant smelling neighborhood. So apparently the word Moffettes was applied to the locale (if you look this word up in the dictionary, you won't find it, at least not in mine. Instead you find Mofette - emanation of carbonic gas, most often in volcanic regions and mines. My guess is that a slang version of the word might have been used to describe other sorts of gaseous emenations of a biological origin. Whatever the exact origins or meanings, this word underwent several distortions: Montfétard, Mauffetard, Mofetard, Mouffard, Moftard, and Mostard, before finally becoming Mouffetard.


La Chope Café on Place de la Contrescarpe.

At the northern end of the street is Place de la Contrescarpe. Ernest Hemingway lived around the corner from there on rue du Cardinal-Lemoine on the third floor of number 74, and described the square in The Snows of Killimanjaro. Balzac also described it in Père Goriot. The fountain was put in in 1990. The word Contrescarpe itself is from the creation in 1852 of a military emplacement there. Before then, it was at limits of the walls of the city - the Enceinte de Philippe Auguste. Remenants of the wall are also just around the corner on rue Clovis at number 3. The square now is dominated by two cafes, one of them La Chope, the other La Contrescarpe.

These two cafés trade customers with the seasons. La Chope - on the northern side of the square - gets the sun just about all day throughout the year. In the summer this usually makes it unbearably hot, and I always sit in the shade of La Contrescarpe on those sorts of days. But in winter, the tables are turned - to warm up, I walk across the square to the sun of La Chope.


The corner of rue Mouffetard and rue Arbalète.

Now start walking down rue Mouffetard. There is a story behind just about every number on the street. Some are small: number 6 has a small bucher's ensignia dating from the 18th century; number 9 has an inscription - difficult to read - recalling the demolition in 1685 of the Porte Saint-Marcel. Some stories are a bit bigger. For example number 53's story. On 24 May 1938, while demolishing the house there, a hidden treasure of Louis Nivelle, councellor to the King was discovered. 3,351 pieces of gold, most of them bearing the likness of Louis XV were eventually distributed among 84 decendents, but first after paying the costs of the geneologists, the construction crew, and the City of Paris.

At number 60 there is the Fountaine du Pot-de-Fer, a small fountain dating back to Roman times, and later connected to an aquaduct used by Marie de Médicis to bring water for the nearby Palais du Luxembourg and gardens.

Number 134 has a painted façade of obscure origins - but its been there a while.

The church - Saint Médard, has also been there a while. Pope Alexandre III mentioned the church in a document from when he came to Paris to lay the first stone of Notre Dame in 1163. Over the centuries various pieces were added to the place: part of the choir and chapels were added during the period 1560-1586, but their construction wasn't completed until 1632. The sacriste was done in 1718; from 1773 to 1784 there was more work, and in 1901 the chapelle des catéchismes was added.

Saint Médard also was the scene of some bizarre events in the early 18th century. The incidents involved people who became known as the Covulsionnaires de Saint Médard; the collective hysteria which took place during a five year period is complicated.


Saint Médard at the southern end of La Mouffe.

The result was that the church found itself at the center of a religious storm, with political overtones. All of this started with the teachings of Jansénius - Bishop of Ypres - who had published a theological tombe in 1640 about the doctrines of St Augustin regarding the health of the soul. Internal conflicts with Church ensued, and then there were crack-downs by the Pope. Saint Médard became a place of pilgrimage for followers of Jansénius when François de Pâris was buried there in 1727. Claims of miracles, and visions, by pilgrims to his tomb gave rise to crowds visiting the church. People became entranced; some rolled on the ground, some ate earth from near the tomb. Others in their hysteria had themselves crucified, or pierced their tongues. The scene lasted half a decade before a local police lieutenant - Hérault - closed the cemetary in 1732 by the order of Louis XV and placed guards.

There is more to this hysteria story, but lets stop there. Nowadays, the church is a quiet, unassuming place. Surrounded by trees, and with a small little park next to it, it marks the southern end of the Mouffe.


The daily open market - St. Médard is in the background.

During the mornings the lower half of the Mouffe is a lively open market with people from the neighborhood shopping for lunch and dinner. The market is there every day, and without too much imagination, it is easy to see the scene as if it was being played out in the Middle Ages. Entrepreneurs shouting out their prices; hogs heads smile from the butcher's stand, the vegetable carts, the beggers, neighbors meeting for a coffee, or drink. Thats the Mouffe in the morning.

At night the market is gone, and a multitude of little restaurants open - Greek, Argentinian.... everything but French it seems. These are for consumption by tourists. Not too many Parisians eat at these places, but it is still a charm to walk down the street at night just the same. Stop in one of the cafés up at the Place de la Contrescarpe, get an ice cream on a hot summer night at the little Italian place, or a crêpe at the Crêperie across from the Greek Giros sandwich place.

Of course all of the above is not even the half of it. The Mouffe is yet richer than this. Take a stroll down it your next visit to Paris. You won't be disappointed.

If you go, rue Moufftard is in the 5th arrondissement, a short walk from the Panthéon. The nearest Métro Stops are Place Monge, and Censier-Daubenton.


Norman Barth is the Editor of the Paris Kiosque, and webmaster/creator of Les Pages de Paris. He can be contacted at nbarth@paris.org

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Monday, 14 April 2008
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