I live on street called rue des Francs-Bourgeois- it was originally known as rue de Pouleies after the pulleys that were used on the looms of the local weavers. The name changed in 1334 when a poor house was built for 48 middle class Parisians who had fallen on hard times. The plus side to their poverty was they did not have to pay taxes. Francs Bourgeois means “middle class men that don’t pay taxes”- which, of course, describes me to a tee. I am on the corner of rue Vieille-du-Temple and Franc Bourgeois. The rue Vieille-du-Temple means the street to the old temple- the temple in this case being for the Knights of the Templar. As you remember this organization begged me to join them but unfortunately their gang colors are red and I’m an “autumn” so it could never be. On this corner there are three relatively new apartments, one of which is mine, and a building from the 1500 ‘s called Hotel Herouet. The day after liberation, in August 1944, the Germans lobbed shells into Paris as a final “f* you” to the city- one of these shells hit the intersection of rue Vieille-du-Temple and Francs Bourgeois destroying three buildings but leaving the Hotel Herouet damaged but fixable. This brings me to the entire point of this post, Brigitte Bardot lived in the Hotel Herouet during the 60’s -so I missed running into her at the drug store by 40 years. She could have had a restraining order against me long before it became fashionable.

* Update: It was brought to my attention that I misspelled Brigitte's name on the google map- I'd make a terrible stalker but a pretty good stauker.