Street History – Rue de l’Amiral Courbet and its facades of engraved houses

Rue de l’Amiral Courbet has elements that immerse us in history! Intriguing traces of the 18th century which attest to the military past of the city.

We will see numbers engraved on some house facades that were not destroyed during the great fire of 1940 which destroyed 70% of the heritage. These engraved numbers come from the old numbering of the dwellings of Amiens and which are linked to the military past of the city.

Soldiers housed with residents

On this postcard from 1902, we see Captain de la Rupelle on horseback, in this rue de l’Amiral Courbet, after reviewing the troops. And it is a common scene because from 1597, a citadel is established in Amiens which becomes a garrison town, but in the first times, it is not equipped with barracks to accommodate the soldiers who then find themselves accommodated with the inhabitants. , it’s the soldier’s “Airbnb”.

A royal ordinance of March 1, 1768 set up the numbering of houses to better organize the distribution of soldiers.

At the time, in Amiens, it was the place d’arme, the current Place Gambetta, which was the center of the city and it was from this point that the houses were numbered in a spiral from numbers 1 to 5402. And we still find traces of these numbers today, especially in this street.

One can see above the plate 61, the number 4974 engraved in the stone, it is thus a dwelling which accomodated soldiers in function in Amiens. You can have fun looking for a few in the city, it’s funny to have 2 numbers on the same facade, because we abandoned this numbering system under Napoleon in 1804 when we set up the classic numbering of our streets.

Think about it the next time you stroll through the city center!

Find Alexis on his Instagram account “Histoire de Rue”