when the 20th arrondissement supplied Paris with fresh fruit and vegetables

At a time when Parisians are reinventing “urban farms” and calling themselves “locavores”, who remembers that part of the 20th arrondissement was for a long time a land of gardening and market gardening? However, certain street names can ring a bell: rue des Maraîchers, rue des Haies or rue des Grands Champs… The History and Archeology Association of the 20th arrondissement of Paris (AHAV) refreshes us a little memory.

It has always been necessary to supply Paris with vegetables, “herbage” and fresh fruit. Since the Middle Ages, Paris has been a dense and very populated city: 250,000 inhabitants in 1300, making it the most populous capital in Western Europe. To supply the markets, in these times when long-distance transport and artificial cold are unknown, professional gardeners cultivate fairly large areas of vegetables (cabbage, salads, cucumbers, etc.) within the city itself. ), of which the current rue du Pont-aux-Choux (3rd arr.) is a distant memory.

Just like the well-known “peach farms” of Haut Montreuil are a vestige of the international capital of quality fishing and other fruits, strawberries and cherries, which this neighboring village of Paris has long been. As the urban expansion progressed, these gardens had to retreat, cross the successive walls of Paris and reach the nearby suburbs to finally move further away into the Paris region.

The work of the market gardener is different from that of the cultivator or the plowman. It is a very qualified profession which requires good knowledge of the species of cut vegetables and flowers and the methods (soil amendment, tree trellising, use of greenhouses, frames or glass bells, etc.) necessary to protect the plants, “Force” them and make them produce both in abundant quantity and quality. The work is hard and the days are long: early to rise, late to bed… In Paris, from the end of the Middle Ages, there was a corporation of “gardeners, olive growers and market gardeners”. In 1772, it had around 1,200 master gardeners. It disappeared with the Revolution.

A “small market gardening suburb”

But these gardeners, many of whom are long-time Parisians, remain in place, soon reinforced by newcomers from the nearby countryside. Gardening and market gardening activities continued in Paris and its near and distant suburbs throughout the 19th century and part of the 20th. As the city eats away at its suburbs, the garden areas move outside the limits of Paris, then even beyond. We remember that at the end of the 1970s, the choice of Bobigny as the capital of the new department of Seine-Saint-Denis led to the move of its market gardeners, leaving with the soil from their gardens which was for them a work tool and a quality investment.

Many gardeners and market gardeners have left their names inscribed on Parisian roads. In the neighboring 12th arrondissement, there is a rue des Jardiniers and a rue Dagorno, and many passages bear the names of now forgotten gardeners. In the 20th arrondissement, we also have the Josseaume passage and the Dagorno impasse.

Who are these people?

Dagorno? A surname which could well be Breton in origin. The first Dagorneau spotted – the family would later adopt the spelling Dagorno – was Nicolas Dagorneau, who died in Paris at the end of the 18th century. He is described as a gardener, living on rue des Amandiers, in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite. It is not known where he was born. Through his marriage, he is linked to Belleville families such as the Mouroys and the Auroux and some of his brothers-in-law are winegrowers in Belleville.

This couple will have numerous descendants who will be found scattered throughout various Parisian neighborhoods. Some settled in the current 12th arrondissement, rue de Picpus or rue de Reuilly, or near Place la Nation or rue de la Voûte and rue du Rendez-vous. Others settled in Charonne, particularly near rue des Haies. At the beginning of the 20th century, other Dagornos would go further into the Paris region (Maisons-Alfort, Alfortville, etc.).

And the Jossaumes? They were originally from Avranchin, in Manche, which they left in the 1810s. The first to arrive in Paris was probably André Josseaume (1790-1871), who married in 1813 in Saint-Ambroise. Around 1819, he was joined by one of his brothers, Jacques François Josseaume (ca 1787-1855), who, in 1846, was a gardener on the walkway of the Saint-Mandé barrier. Josseaume can be found successively in the old village of Bercy (around 1853), rue and boulevard de Reuilly (in 1871) and in Charonne. At the beginning of the 20th century, some settled in Créteil (1914).

Great gardening families of Paris

Over the generations, the Dagornos and the Josseaumes were united by marriage with most of the great gardening families of Paris and its suburbs. It is in fact a well-established habit in this profession: when you are the child of a gardener, you only marry a son or daughter of gardeners and, in the event of widowhood, you remarry in the same environment. They thus participate in a vast professional community which practices endogamy, shares its professional knowledge, works throughout the Ile-de-France region and ends up constituting a sort of gardening and market gardening “aristocracy”.

>> Find the article “Do you know how to plant cabbages à la mode de… Charonne?” (in full), on the website of the AHAV, the history and archeology association of the 20th arrondissement of Paris.

Former gardeners' house, transformed into an industrial wash house, rue de Charonne, early 20th century. Postcard.

Drawing of the rue des Maraîchers in 1896. Jules-Adolphe Chauvet — National Library of France

Photo of rue des Maraîchers in 1898 – Archives of the city of Paris