"Pierre Au Lard" street

Here is a very small street of the 4th arrondissement : the street "Pierre Au Lard". This tiny street is shaped like an elbow at the corner of "la rue Saint-Merri" and "la rue du Renard".

Contrarily of one may think, "Pierre Au Lard" is not the medieval nickname of an inhabitant of this street (In French, Pierre is 'Peter' and "lard" means bacon so it could have been the nickname of a man called 'Peter and found of pork' : but that's wrong !).

Actually, this name "Pierre Au Lard" is a linguistic distortion over the years of "Pierre en l'air" which means "stone in the air". During the Roman time, one could have found at this specific location, a megalithic landscape outside of "Lutece". The city used to be far more developed on the left bank. It also appears that a large standing stone remained at this specific location of Paris until the Middle Ages. This is why, this little tiny street, wich used to be much longer (it was shortened when the Pompidou Center was built) is now called "Pierre Au Lard".

Nowadays, in this tiny street, one could find a charming little theatre : le théâtre de l'Essaion.

Translation : Emmanuelle

French version of this post.

Comments

[Rédigé par : Nigel]

Quite interesting ! Thank you for this post in English. I compare this version with the French one and so I improve my French. I've been living in the 4th arrondissement for 5 years but my French is still bad and I can't grasp everything.