The baker Yves known as Coudray Yves

Wrestler and athlete specialized in lifting loads. Born in Vitré in 1879, who died in Paris in 1954, this indomitable Breton chose to live as a free man, dragging his dumbbells from public squares to boulevards, far from official settings or circus arenas. A self-taught musician, he would bring onlookers together by blowing tunes from Aida or Michael Strogoff, before delivering his shows of force on the Boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle or in the Square d'Anvers. His life was that of asphalt weightlifters, of "placarders", of these wandering, proud and solitary athletes, living not on charity but on generosity snatched from passers-by, dazzled by his authentic exploits, far from the rigged weights sometimes used by others. Yves Coudray was not one of them. Trained in the classical school of weightlifting – he rubbed shoulders with Paul Pons and set some promising records – he quickly turned away from it, preferring to walk the streets, adopting as a pseudonym the profession of his youth: Yves Le Boulanger. The public, won over, affectionately renamed it "La Boulange". Escorted by his apprentice pulling the cart, supported for a time by the actor Charles Moulin or Charles Rigoulot, the strongest man in the world, Yves Le Boulanger established himself as a key figure in street shows. His specialty: Herculean strength in his wrists and especially in his fingers – a talent perhaps inherited from his years of kneading. For nearly half a century, he lifted thousands of 20 kg weights, to applause, jokes, but also coins thrown on his worn carpet, between two truculent calls: "Five more sous and the show begins", "Five sous the bidas", "Five sous the nanny, otherwise the bacon will squeak". The career of the king of the pliers came to an end in 1951, before his discreet death in 1954.