Rue du Mont-Cenis, at the summit of Montmartre hill in Paris

The rue du Mont-Cenis in Montmartre is a steeply sloping street, 1,304 meters long and 12 meters wide. It begins at the intersection of rue Saint-Éleuthère and rue Azaïs, in the Montmartre district, runs alongside the Saint-Pierre de Montmartre church near place du Tertre, crosses rue Saint-Vincent, rue Lamarck, place Jules-Joffrin, rue Marcadet, rue Ordener, rue Championnet and boulevard Ornano, and ends at rue Belliard. A street, but also a staircase.

It features numerous staircases along its route: 52 between rue Custine and rue Lamarck, 54 between rue Paul-Féval and rue Saint-Vincent, and 81 between the latter and rue Cortot. Its name evokes a rocky massif in the Alps.

Its very steep layout has borne this name since 1868, in reference to Mont Cenis, a massif in the Northern Alps. A former procession path

Every seven years, at the site of the current Jules-Joffrin metro station, representatives of the Abbess of Montmartre would meet monks from the Abbey of Saint-Denis to escort them to the top of the butte. This path was called the "chemin de la Procession," then "petite rue Saint-Denis" between rue Norvins and rue Marcadet, and later "chaussée Saint-Denis."

The April 1944 bombing

On the night of April 20 to 21, 1944, during the German occupation of World War II, the nearby La Chapelle railway depot was bombed by Allied aircraft.

These also targeted a German anti-aircraft defense unit on the Montmartre hill. The surrounding area was hit. A witness recalls: We were going up the stairs of rue du Mont-Cenis, at the corner of rue Cortot. From there, we could see the flames rising toward Saint-Denis, and when we turned back toward rue des Saules, it was the plain of Saint-Denis that was burning.