The Rue du Pélican, just a stone’s throw from the Louvre Museum and the Palais-Royal, hides a rather astonishing story.
In the Middle Ages, this street had a far less elegant name: Rue du Poil-au-Con. Back then, it lay just behind the walls built by Philippe II de France and was part of the areas where prostitution was officially tolerated under the reign of Louis IX. Needless to say, it must have been a lively neighborhood!
Everything changed with the French Revolution. In 1792, in a symbolic break from the old order, the street was renamed “Rue Purgée”, as if to wipe its scandalous past clean.
A few years later, it finally received the name we know today: Rue du Pélican, a much more respectable title for this small street full of history.
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