The Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris, its name origins and César Baldaccini's centaur

There is a curious street in Paris called Rue du Cherche-Midi, "Seek Noon Street". One version holds that the name comes from an ancient bas-relief of an astronomer taking measurements with a sundial. Another ties the enigmatic, even comical name to the forests that once covered the neighbourhood so thickly that one had to look for the sun among the branches at noon.

D'Artagnan wandered along this street, and Victor Hugo, Roger Martin du Gard, the Duke of Saint-Simon and the inventor of the stethoscope all lived here. It was here, too, that Alfred Dreyfus stood before his judges.

And in 1985 a most exotic monument was set up at the very beginning of the street.

César Baldaccini's Centaur, put together from living flesh and steel tools and weapons, holding an iron dove in its hand and dedicated to the memory of Pablo Picasso. It is, of course, the supreme emblem of the French injunction to "hold your tail like a pistol", that is, to keep your chin up!