Once out of doors, you might proceed in all weather fearless of rain; the projecting upper stories sheltered completely the sides of the street, and a stout cloth cloak was all that was needed to save either sex from the inclemency of the seasons. At frequent intervals there opened into the main street, side streets, and _ruelles_ or alleys, which showed in comparison like Gulliver in Brobdignag: up some of these ways a single horseman might be able to go; but along others--and some of them remain to the present day--two stout citizens could never have walked arm-in-arm. They looked like enormous cracks between a couple of buildings, rather than as ways made for the convenience of locomotion: they were pervious, perhaps, to donkeys, but not to the loaded packhorse--the great street was intended for that animal--coaches did not exist, and the long narrow carts of the French peasantry, whenever they came into the city, did not occupy much more space than the bags or packs of the universal carrier. To many of these streets the most eccentric appellations were given; there was the _Rue des Mauvaises Paroles_--people of ears polite had no business to go near it; the _Rue Tire Chappe_--a spot where those who objected to be plucked by the vests, or to have their clothes pulled off their backs by importunate accosters, need not present themselves; another in this quarter was called the _Rue Tire-boudin_. Marie Stuart, when Queen of France, was riding, it is said, through it one day, and struck, perhaps, by the looks of its inhabitants, asked what the street was called. The original appellation was so indecent that an officer of her guards, with courtly presence of mind, veiled it under its present title. One was known as the _Rue Brise-miche_, and the cleanliness of its inhabitants might instantly be judged of: a fifth was the _Rue Trousse-vache_, and one of the shops in it was adorned with an enormous sign of a red cow, with her tail sticking up in the air and her head reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious gambler, Thibault-au-dé, well known for his skill in loading dice, gave his name to one of these narrow veins of the town: Aubry, a wealthy butcher, is still immortalized in another: and the _Rue du Petit Hurleur_ probably commemorated some wicked youngster, whose shouts were a greater nuisance to the neighbours than those of any of his companions.