Rue Amyot, the Well That Speaks

Paris · Frankrig · Urban site

The well on the slope answered clearly when you called down it — and Parisians were sure the voice came from someone buried alive.

Until 1867 the steep little street on the Sainte-Geneviève hill was called rue du Puits-qui-parle: the street of the well that speaks. The name appears on maps of Paris as early as 1588 and comes from a well that answered. Call down into it and the words came back, clear and complete, word for word. For a population with no explanation for the echo it was a marvel, and people made pilgrimages to hear the voice. Victor Hugo gave it a darker reading in Notre-Dame de Paris: a medieval Job who for thirty years sang the penitential psalms at the bottom of a cistern and began again as soon as he finished, louder at night, and whose voice the antiquary still thinks he hears on turning into the street. Excavations in 1978 found some twenty Gallo-Roman votive wells beneath the houses.

FAQ

Hvor ligger Rue Amyot, the Well That Speaks?

Rue Amyot, the Well That Speaks ligger i Paris, Frankrig.