When you walk rue Montorgueil, in Paris, you can be intrigued by the name of this passage above this imposing green door: “Passage of the Queen of Hungary”, but who is this this queen of hungary ?
A ressemblance to the queen
This passage, bored around 1770, owes its name to a nickname given to one of the saleswomen in Les Halles, who was working there at the time. Shortly before the Revolution, this young woman, named Julie Pécheur, volunteered to give Queen Marie-Antoinette a protest petition, signed by the workers of Les Halles.
The Queen was amused by this daring young woman, to whom she found a resemblance to her mother, the Queen of Hungary. She grants her many complaints. The two women become intimate. Back in the passage, the anecdote appealed to both Julie Pécheur’s colleagues and the nickname she stuck with, and the place itself was so named. Unfortunately did not bring luck to the unfortunate Julie Pécheur. She was guillotined a few years later, during the Revolution, for having “sympathized” with the monarchy …
