The Rue de l'Estrapade

Paris street names hide many stories, but few can be as gruesome as the Rue de l'Estrapade. Tucked away behind the Pantheon in the 5th arrondissement, the street today is quiet, studious and respectable, but until the 17th century it was the scene of a quite horrific form of torture - the infamous estrapade (or strappado)!

In Paris, this form of torture - which consists of tying a victim's hands behind their back then suspending them from a post by their wrists - was used mainly on the city's Protestant population. Few survived the punishment, being repeatedly hoisted back up to the top of the post then dropped down again, in full view of the baying crowds.

Shortly after the estrapade was declared illegal in France, the writer and philosopher Denis Diderot moved into a house at the number three of this street where he worked on his Encyclopédie. His encyclopedia contains a description for the words tortur and estrapade, which he points out "n'est plus d'usage, au moins en France".

Whether any traces of the torture were left in the street at the time of Diderot is not noted, but nothing survives today. Anyone walking this way now would find no descriptions of the street name, and no reminders in the road's buildings and commerces. If the passer-by then sat down to eat at the 'L'Estrapade' restaurant at number 15, they would probably not even stop to reflect after finding a plat named 'Suicide au chocolat' on the menu.