La Mouffe - rue Mouffetard

Before the rue Mouffetard was ever known to anyone, before the Cro-magnon or other humanoids stepped into its historic path, the rue Mouffetard was an animal trail to a water hole on the Bièvre, on the bent of the river Bièvre whose waters clashed with the foot of today's montagne Sainte Genevieve, and spilled forward and downward through today's Jardin des Plantes, into the Seine.

The water was clear, a whirlpool had formed eroding a water hole large enough to quell the thirst of a thousand beasts, mammoths, wild boar, deer, bears - - imagine finding a hunting ground to still one's hunger! - - and man took over. Now the animal trail became a path up the mountain top, the mirador to the north and east sighting any signs of smoke and imminent arrival of predator-competitors out on conquest. The south side of the mountain, warmed by the sun, shielded from north and north-westerly storms, was ideal for cultivating berries and grain. The mosquito from the marshland of the Seine were blown away by the daily breeze and although the Bièvre sometimes turned into a dangerous torrent, most of the time it was a cornucopia of sweet water shrimp and small and large fish you could catch with your hands.

Around 300BC came the parisii tribe from somewhere near the Alps, bringing the knowledge of pole housing and settling on today's ile de la cité, safe from attack by the Seine's impassable running moat. They built a wooden bridge between today's ile de la cité to the left bank of the Seine, from where they controlled the south of their newly acquired empire. But empires don't last and the Romans sent their legions and defeated the Gaulish warriors in 52BC.

The Romans brought Freedom and Democracy and their own vision of shaping the world - in everlasting stone. Their architects ran aqueducts from higher up off the Bièvre feeding the hight of Mont Cetavius, as someone called it, with running water, and developed homes for senators, the forum, 3 public bath houses, a heated swimming pool, theaters and the arena for staging shows bigger than Bercy's. Elephants and lions trundled up the rue Mouffetard on the way to the arena to impress the Gaulish slaves -- who revolted like Asterix and Obelix, but let the Romans Roman be. Rue Mouffetard was called Cetavius, after a Roman who owned part of the mountain and called it mont Cetavius. It was not the road to Lyon as some claim, but the direct route towards Fontainebleau, and then onwards towards farther destinations.

Amongst the many things the Romans introduced were grapes and wine making. They planted grapes all over the southern mountain side and it became a vast vineyard of some reputable wine for the Roman's orgiastic parties.

But since empires don't last, the Romans had to go. They left stone buildings behind of regal design which were demolished by waves of barbaric and hysterical vandalism. The Catholic empire created under Clovis, started a resurrection of stone buildings, churches, cathedrals, convents, through the venerable help of free laborers of Saint Jacques, and administrative buildings only royal tycoons of France could imagine. The Middle Ages was probably less dark than they say, since it produced a number of extraordinary trades that needed water and used, on an increasingly industrial scale, the water of the Bièvre. Tanning, wood-working, dying of wools and cotton, finally tapestry and milling became along the Bièvre the most important economic activity. The rue Montard, as they now called it from Mont Cétard or Cetarius, lead down directly from the height of what was becoming the student's quarter, to this economic epicenter all the way to where Jean Gobelin opened his famous tapestry production in the XV century.

From the Middle Ages on, the river Bièvre acquired the reputation of being the sewer of society. Outside its boundaries heaps of rubbish were burned, and an arched stone bridge at the foot of the rue Mouffetard, was called pont aux tripes, where a butcher whose tripe were emptied into the river had settled. Across the river was the small "bourg" Saint Marcel, and chez Gobelin students were given free beer to hang out and piss in their vats to fix their magnificent colors on fine tapestry whose secret was kept so secret, that it took centuries to find out how they did it. But Rabelais already hung out here and participated in uric acid production, immortalizing the scene in his Rabelais and Pantagruel tale. The couple of hundred years later didn't improve this behavior where the riverains owned half of the river's bed to do with it as they wished. The Bièvre became a pestilence surrounded by cheap brasseries and cabarets attracting the intelligentsia, students, poets and writers as well as the poor, mentally deranged and auspicious characters of Balzac's novels.

La Mouffe, from mofet, or stink, is what this part was called, which is today where the eglise Saint Medard stands, an historic monument at the back door of Paris dating well beyond the Middle Ages and changed each century to adapt to its shaping of humanity in the raw. But the neighborhood had also its charming palaces, the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem lived here, as well as other wealthy citizen, behind high walls, since the surrounding was where a wild horde of lawless people, drunken students, thieves and thugs careened.

Today the rue Mouffetard has remained true to its nature - it has not been altered, and when you walk its pavés, you feel the thousand year itch, although the smell is gone. Haussmann whose practical reshaping of Paris provided the boulevards, proposed to send the Bièvre underground. Long after his death, in the beginning of the XX century, this was effectively achieved and today you have two fountains to remind you of something you never imagined existed. What is left is a pretty street that has the feel of the Middle Ages without the reputation that comes with it and although it still has a lot of restaurants, most of them are of questionable sub-tourist quality. Further down you still find on the rue de l'arbalette, honest cafés and bistrots, or the pied qui tourne, one of the oldest ones (old?) where Sunday afternoons when the sun shines musicians gather to entertain those out strolling and frolicking the magnificent sights.

Today you still have painters, like Jacques Camus, who has been painting this historic street very much like it might have looked centuries ago. Much has changed and, as Ric Erickson points out, there are no more shrimp in the Biévre or its fantastic fountains.