Jacques Hillairet

Auguste André Coussillan (31 July 1886 – 15 April 1984) was a French historian specialising in the history of Paris. Under the pen-name Jacques Hillairet he wrote two major reference works on the subject in the 1950s - Connaissance du vieux Paris and Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris.

Biography Hillairet's father was a postmaster and was appointed to Paris when he was 7 years old. Hillairet also began his career in the public sector and was employed at the telephone exchange on the rue de Grenelle in 1910. At the outbreak of World War I, he was drafted and assigned to work in communications. He was first stationed at the seafront telegraph service in Cherbourg. From August 10, 1914, he was moved to the Army of Alsace, where he installed telephone services in the trenches. He remained in the army after the war.

Between 1924 and 1926, he was a professor at the Saumur cavalry school. He was then assigned to the Ministry of War and later, between 1930 and 1938, to Lebanon (then under French mandate) on behalf of the Ministry of Telephones. He was mobilised at the start of World War II as a colonel. Taken prisoner, he was sent to Silesia during the winter of 1940. He was released in 1941 and retired from the army. He then lived in Marseille.

After the Liberation, he settled in Paris, where he became passionate about the less well known aspects of Parisian history. He organised conference tours on old Paris and changed his name to carry out this activity so that, in his words, "his little comrades in the army would not mess with him”. He took his mother's birth name and called himself Jacques Hillairet.

From 1951, Hillairet published a series of three books with Editions de Minuit. These were followed in 1956 by the three volumes of the Connaissance du Vieux Paris series. He also directed the Évocation du Grand Paris series, which includes three works by the historian Georges Poisson. The Historical Dictionary of the Streets of Paris, regularly republished and updated, describes in detail the history, monuments and events that have marked some 5,334 streets of the French capital. In 1957, he received the literary grand prize from the General Council of the Seine and, in 1978, the vermeil medal from the City of Paris.

In 1990, a rue Jacques-Hillairet was created in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, close to where he lived.

Works Évocation du vieux Paris. Vieux Quartiers, vieilles rues, vieilles demeures, historique, vestiges, annales et anecdotes, 3 vol., Minuit, 1951-1954 1. Le Paris du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance; Vol. 2. Les Faubourgs. Vol. 3. Les Villages de Paris. Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, église collégiale royale et paroissiale, l'église, la paroisse, le quartier, avec Maurice Baurit, Minuit, 1955 Le Palais du Louvre, sa vie, ses grands souvenirs historiques, Minuit, 1955; 1961 Connaissance du vieux Paris, Le Club français du livre, 1956; 3 vol., Gonthier, 1963; Le Club français du livre, 1965 à 1976; Éditions Princesse, 1978; Payot/Rivages, 1993; Rivages/Poche, 2005. Vol. 1. Rive droite. Vol. 2. Rive gauche. Vol. 3. Les Îles es les Villages. Gibets, piloris et cachots du vieux Paris, Minuit, 1956; 1989 Les 200 Cimetières du vieux Paris, Minuit, 1958 Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris, 2 vol., Minuit, 1963; 1985; 2004 Le Palais royal et impérial des Tuileries et son jardin, Minuit, 1965 Charonne, notre quartier, avec Lucien Lambeau, Étiolles, 1965 La Rue de Richelieu, Minuit, 1966 Les Musées d'art de Paris, avec Raymond Cogniat, Aimery Somogy, 1967 L'Île Saint-Louis, rue par rue, maison par maison, Minuit, 1967 L'Île de la Cité, Minuit, 1969 La Rue Saint-Antoine, Minuit, 1970; 1988 Le Douzième Arrondissement, Minuit, 1972 Les Mazarinettes, ou les Sept Nièces de Mazarin, Minuit, 1976 La Colline de Chaillot, Minuit, 1977 Le Village d'Auteuil, Minuit, 1978