Rue Mouffetard () is a street in the

5th arrondissement of Paris The 5th arrondissement of Paris (''Ve arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le cinquième''. The arrondissement, also known as Panthéon, is ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Situated in the fifth (''cinquième'') arrondissement of Paris, Rue Mouffetard is one of Paris's oldest and liveliest neighbourhoods. These days the area has many restaurants, shops, and cafés, and a regular open market. It is centered on the Place de la Contrescarpe, at the junction of the rue Mouffetard and the rue de Lacepede. Its southern terminus is at the Square Saint-Médard where there is a permanent open-air market. At its northern terminus, it becomes the rue Descartes at the crossing of the rue Thouin. It is closed to normal motor traffic much of the week, and is predominantly a pedestrian avenue.

Origin of the name

The rue Mouffetard runs along a flank of the mont Sainte-Geneviève hill that was called "mont Cétarius" or "mont Cetardus" from Roman times; many historians consider "Mouffetard" to be a derivation of this early name. Over the centuries the rue Mouffetard has appeared as rue ''Montfétard'', ''Maufetard'', ''Mofetard'', ''Moufetard'', ''Mouflard'', ''Moufetard'', ''Moftard'', ''Mostard'', and also ''rue Saint-Marcel'', ''rue du Faubourg Saint-Marceau'' ("street of the suburb Saint-Marceau") and ''rue de la Vieille Ville Saint-Marcel'' ("old town Saint-Marcel street").

History

The origins of this thoroughfare are ancient, dating back to

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several par ...

times. As with today's ''rue Galande'', ''rue Lagrange'', ''rue de la

Montagne Sainte-Geneviève The Montagne Sainte-Geneviève is a hill overlooking the left bank of the Seine in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. It was known to the ancient Romans as .Hilaire Belloc, ''Paris (Methuen & Company, 1900)'' Retrieved June 14, 2016 Atop the Monta ...

'' and ''rue Descartes'', it was a Roman road running from the Roman

Rive Gauche The Rive Gauche (, ''Left Bank'') is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two parts. When facing downstream, the southern bank is to the left, and the northern bank (or '' Rive ...

city south to Italy. From the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

a church along this section of roadway became centre of a ''"bourg Saint-Médard"'' (Saint-Médard village), and from 1724 was integrated into Paris as the main artery of the ''"Faubourg Saint Médard"''. The

Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominen ...

family moved at #6 rue Mouffetard in April 1746, where lived also François-Jacques Guillotte, a police officer who wrote an article (''Pont militaire'') for the ''

Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...

'' by Diderot. The area remained relatively unchanged because of its location on the

, which protected it from

Baron Haussmann Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

's redevelopment during the reign of

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephe ...

Cultural references

* In 1910

Alexander Bogdanov Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and ...

delivered a lecture about Empiriomonism. *

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

replied quoting his own '' Materialism and Empiriocriticism'' in response. * At the beginning of Chapter IV of ''

The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the ...

'' (1926),

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century ...

describes a taxicab heading down the Rue Mouffetard from the Place Contrescarpe.Hemingway in Paris
/ref> * The area and the street featured prominently in

Krzysztof Kieślowski Krzysztof Kieślowski (; 27 June 1941 – 13 March 1996) was a Polish film director and screenwriter. He is known internationally for ''Dekalog'' (1989), '' The Double Life of Veronique'' (1991), and the ''Three Colours'' trilogy (1993 –1994 ...

's '' Trois Couleurs: Bleu'' (1992), and stands as the central locale and 'character' in

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film ...

's ''L'opéra-mouffe'' (1958). * The iconic

Henri Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as c ...

photograph '' Rue Mouffetard'' was taken on this street in 1954.

References

* Mouffetard, rue Pedestrian streets in France {{Paris-road-stub