This street was once known as Rue Saint Buc and Rue Saint-Christophe (who was the patron saint of dockers and longshoremen).
In 1839, it was named after Pierre Louis Boursaint (Saint-Malo 1781 - St-Germain-en-Laye 1833), who was the Main French Naval Commissioner and the Director of the Office for Disabled Mariners.
It was in this street that the fire of 1661, which destroyed 287 houses in a single night, came to an end on the boundary of a building which faced the inn called La Place Royale or Les Trois Rois (No. 3 Rue Boursaint and No. 10 Rue du Puits-aux-Braies).
Number 1 on this street had its glazed wooden façade restored in 2005. Its entrance at No. 9 Rue des Petits-Degrés dates from 1641.
Many of the street’s wooden façades were destroyed in a succession of fires, or due to lack of maintenance. They once gave the town its own particular character which made it resemble the port towns of northern France.
Number 2 (which is listed in the Supplementary Inventory of the Historical Monuments Commission) is quite characteristic of the houses that were rebuilt after 1661.
Its cut stone façade juts out slightly into the street. Its windows are rectangular and fitted with window frames with window bars and sculpted granite supports. The floors are separated by equally finely-moulded band courses.
On the top floor, the dormer windows are crowned with curved pediments, adopting a model that was widespread in Saint-Malo in the 17th century.
