Emblematic street of old Paris, rue Mouffetard is also one of the best known, the street has always been the scene of a special animation. Over time, rue Mouffetard has gone from being a disreputable, dirty and dangerous place to one of the coolest and most pleasant places in the capital. Today we are also wondering about the strange name of this street and its origin. The name of the rue Mouffetard would then come from the term “Mouffette”, which was an animal that smelled very badly. When you go to the rue Mouffetard, well you simply go to the “rue qui stinks”. But what is the origin of this foul odor? Several explanations are available to us … First, the passage of the Bièvre at the bottom of the Sainte-Geneviève mountain. A veritable open sewer, the river has long polluted the street with its smelly ebb, it even seems that the waterway was a refuge for skunks (hey!), These animals far from smelling of roses. Finally, rue Mouffetard has historically been populated by tanners, butchers and skinners, who do not emit the most appreciable odors.