Cour des Miracles

The name of the rue de la Grande-Truanderie (Great Scam) refers to one of the Paris's 12 cours des Miracles, so called because when the most severely crippled beggars returned there at the end of each working day, they suddenly found themselves cured, lively, and nimble. Each had their specialty: the francs-mitoux pretended to faint at street corners, the piètres hauled themselves about on crutches, the coquillards claimed to be pilgrims in need, the sabouleux were phony paralytics or epileptics, the rifodés crawled on deformed limbs, the mercandiers affected to be war victims, and so on. They had laws, a language, and a leader called Le Ragot (today, slang for gossip), who was succeeded during the reign of François I by Le Grand Coësre. Every night, the beggars gave their chief a percentage of their gains and then spent the rest on a feast, since their law required them to keep nothing for the next day, but eat, drink, and be merry until all their money was gone. Towns within the town, the cours des Miracles had as many as 40,000 inhabitants in 1560. The Police Lieutenant La Reynie cleared them in 1667.

- Dominique Lesbros, Curiosities of Paris, New York, 2017, p.69

See also:

History: The siege-breaking balloons of Paris, 5 June 2020

History: Paris chose to be self-centred, 1 October 2016

Books: Hemingway starts his day, 30 April 2016