When I passed by this sign in Saint-Florentin last week, I wondered what a maladrerie was. And this week, a local bicultural woman (Barbara Becquiot) explained it to me. This is the street that leads from the local church to what was a former leprosarium (leper colony) over an underground tunnel. The lepers would walk through the tunnel to the church where people would leave food donations for them. In some countries leprosariums were called "lazarettos", after Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers. In the past, leprosy was erroneously believed to be highly contagious. This belief, and the stigma associated with its disfiguration, caused communities to quarantine infected people in isolated places.

The church in St. Florentin

 

 Buildings Remaining from the Maladrerie