Abstract

This article aims to analyze the uses of one’s address as a resource. It studies the case of several unrelated individuals who happened to live on the same (short) parisian street at roughly the same time, the end of the XVIIth century. It is possible to know that these men had lived on this street, named «rue Guénégaud» after the minister ot the King (Louis XIV) who had his mansion there and had been responsible for the very existence of the street (built around 1650), because each one of them put his address on his books. One lived for years from private lessons and the sale of his philosophical books, without having ever belonged to any university or scientific institution. The second one was a tailor who wrote the first book with patterns for cutting clothes ever published in France, in 1671. The third one practiced medecine without being a physician and has published a wide variety of books, including the first journal of medecine, the first treatise of forensic medecine and the first directory of useful addresses in Paris. Social and urban historians seldom use Early Modern books in order to study the agency of individual city dwellers. The fact that three random neighbors without any position of power chose to mention the place where one could find their books on those books themselves, beside their publisher’s address or not, suggests that this particular address, this particular area, meant something to them, somehow provided means to understand their time and thrive in it