Twice ToldSaint-Foix, Essais historiques sur Paris, vol. 1 (1762 printing), pp. 144 to 145: the green monster of Vauvert
- Language
- French
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 15 October 2026
Original
Spelling as printed, with the long s written s. The passage begins mid-sentence at the top of p. 144; the last lines are on p. 145.
une maison, avec des jardins & des vignes, au Village de Gentilli. Ces Religieux voyoient de leurs fenêtres le Palais de Vauvert, bâti par le Roi Robert, abandonné par ses successeurs, & dont on pouvoit faire un Monastere commode & agréable, par la proximité de Paris. Le hazard voulut que des esprits, ou revenans, s’aviserent de s’emparer de ce vieux Château. On y entendoit des hurlemens affreux ; on y voyoit des Spectres traînant des chaînes, & entr’autres un monstre vert, avec un grande barbe blanche, moitié homme & moitié serpent, armé d’une grosse massue, & qui sembloit toujours prêt à s’élancer la nuit sur les passans. Que faire d’un pareil Château ? Les Chartreux le demanderent à S. Louis ; il le leur donna avec toutes les appartenances & dépendances. Les revenans n’y revinrent plus ; le nom d’enfer resta seulement à la rue, en mémoire de tout le tapage que les Diables y avoient fait.
Translation
Ours.
…a house with gardens and vineyards in the village of Gentilly. From their windows these monks could see the Palais de Vauvert, built by King Robert and abandoned by his successors, which could be turned into a handy, pleasant monastery so near Paris. By chance, spirits, or “revenants”, took it into their heads to seize this old château. Frightful howls were heard there; spectres were seen dragging chains, and among them a green monster with a great white beard, half man and half serpent, armed with a heavy club, who always seemed ready to leap on passers-by at night. What was to be done with such a château? The Carthusians asked St Louis for it, and he gave it to them with all its appurtenances and dependencies. The revenants did not come back; only the name “Hell” stayed with the street, in memory of all the racket the devils had made there.
Notes
The author is Saint-Foix, and this is the first volume of the 1762 printing, as the archive.org item names it; I did not see its title page.
This is where the green monster enters the story in anything we read. Du Breul (1612) and Dorland describe a spirit that struck and shouted, with no shape. Saint-Foix also writes “le hazard voulut” (“by chance”), so in this printing the spirits were not sent by the monks. Littré (entry “vauvert”) says Saint-Foix has the monks arrange the haunting; that is not in this printing.
Saint-Foix’s paragraph that follows (p. 145) gives two other explanations of the name “Enfer” for the street, via inferior and the rogues who gathered in out-of-the-way streets. It gives no sources for the story.
Reading: the page image is a dark microfilm-style scan but every word is legible. “un grande barbe” is printed so (for “une grande barbe”).