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Underworld and police since the Sun King's time

Another way to discover Paris – preferably after dark
  • In modern Paris, ghosts peer out from unexpected places 

 

 

 

France's most notorious witch

 

Serial killers don't seem to use poison now. But  in mid-17th-century Paris, a spate of witchcraft-linked poisonings destabilized the Sun King's monarchy. We explain why this crime particularly suited women of those times...
Site of her arrest (in 1679)

 

The witch who has received most attention was arrested on the steps of this church, as she came out from mass – another matter that needs explaining. Halting here is also a way to introduce a unique neighborhood.

 

 

  • For the beginning of modern crime, news items that surprise us. Such as –

 

 

"Apaches" (thugs) attack the police near Bastille (in August 1904). Residents join the Apaches....

 

 

  • Other once-dangerous neighborhoods as illustrious writers evoked them

 

The Île de la Cité  was so well-known as a crime-ridden slum that the opening scene Les Mystères de Paris (by Eugène Sue, 1843, it is the first novel to show the underclass with sympathy). To read alone on the esplanade in front of Notre-Dame.... 

 

In passing through Pigalle to visit Montmartre, we tell the story of Jesus-la-Caille (by Francis Carco, 1935). The novel presents gangsters, pimps and prostitutes from the inside – "Jésus-la-Caille is myself", the author said.

 

 

  • Another possibility – the neighborhood that is east of the Latin Quarter, because:   

 

• The "Police Museum" is located there (so is a library that specializes in crime fiction).  

 

• We follow the hero's route as he flees from a fanatical policeman, in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" (set in 1825). A police station is on the same spot as that in the novel...

 

 

  • From the terrace of an excellent restaurant, a glimpse of that police station 

 

 

"X" is the police station, seen from the restaurant terrace.
We could stop at that terrace for dessert (a speciality)

 

 

  • Or we walk into the territory where Hemingway lived as a struggling young writer  

 

 

This could be a movie scene, but it is an habitués café.

 

We stroll down the winding, picturesque rue Mouffetard, which Hemingway mentions in "A moveable feast". He describes a goatherd who comes with his flock, and milks them as his clients look on.  
Exceptional crepes on the picturesque rue Mouffetard

 

That isn't about crime... 

 

But we also evoke human dramas of other kinds.  

 

 

  • Atmosphere emanates from the walls themselves 


"Cheating lover"

 

 

Credits: Poisoner / cover of "L'affaire des Poisons" by J-C Petitfils; Illusration and text / Le Petit Journal, August 14, 1904, back cover and p.1 (translation C. Aubin). Restaurant / Camille Mazeroy; other photos / Catherine Aubin

 

 

Unexpected Paris guided tours