Near the church of St Hilaire, rising from the Boulevard Achard to the Rue Cuvier, is one of Poitiers’ many staircases – though the one with the most interesting name. This is the “Devil’s Staircase.” The legend comes straight out of the good vs evil competitions beloved of J.R.R. Tolkien and so many others, but in simplified form. The story is placed during the reconstruction of St Hilaire’s church in the 11th Century. Apparently, the devil was highly annoyed with St Hilaire, who he saw as a fearsome rival for the souls of Poitevins. Fearsome enough that the devil decided he must stop the reconstruction of Hilaire’s church, lest the saint get too much of the upper hand against him. Each night, after the masons had put in more stones for the church, the devil would take them back out, and in some cases carry them all the way down the stairs to the valley of the Boivre (it was a little early for the Boulevard Achard and its automobile traffic). Another version of the legend has the devil disguising himself as a mason and constantly spilling the water that the masons needed to set the stones. Either way, the construction was not progressing, and the masons decided to take matters into their own hands. They set a night watch, and when the devil appeared he decided to be cautious and come back the next night. Foiled again by the mason’s guard the next night, and the night after that, and the night after, the devil was forced to abandon his plans. Frustrated, he left, but not before having a major “passing of gas” on the stone on which he had been sitting. And so it was said for centuries that the stone on the staircase was “the stone that stank” (la pierre-qui-pue), and the devil’s defeat by St Hilaire was well remembered.
