Rue Laffitte, so named in 1830 in memory of the great financier who laid the foundation of his wealthy future when an impecunious lad, by stooping, under the eye of the commercial magnate waiting to interview him, to pick up a pin that lay in his path. Laffitte died Regent of the Banque de France. So popular was he that when after 1830 he found himself forced to sell his handsome mansion No. 19--l’hôtel de la Borde--a national subscription was got up enabling him to buy it back. Offenbach lived at No. 11. At No. 12 we find an interesting old court. The great art lover and collector, the Marquis of Hertford, lived at No. 2, the old hôtel d’Aubeterre. No. 1, once known as la Maison Dorée, now a post office, was the old hôtel Stainville inhabited by the Communist Cerutti who, in his time, gave his name to the street. Mme Tallien also lived there. For some years before 1909 it was the much frequented Taverne Laffitte. In Rue Le Peletier, the Opera-house burnt down in 1783, was from the early years of the nineteenth century on the site of two old mansions: l’hôtel de Choiseul and l’hôtel de Grammont. On the site of No. 2, Orsini tried to assassinate Napoléon III. At No. 22 we see a Protestant church built in the time of Napoléon I. Rue Drouot, the Salle des Ventes, the great Paris “Auction-rooms” at No. 9, built in 1851, is on the site of the ancient hôtel Pinon de Quincy, subsequently a Mairie. The present Mairie of the arrondissement at No. 6 dates from 1750. In the Revolutionary year 1792 it was the War Office, then the Salon des Étrangers where masked balls were given: les bals des Victimes. No. 2 the _Gaulois_ office, almost wholly rebuilt at the end of the eighteenth century and again in 1811, was originally a fine mansion built in 1717, the home of Le Tellier, later of the duc de Talleyrand, and later still the first Paris Jockey Club (1836-57). The famous dancer Taglioni also lived here at one time. Rue Grange-Batelière was a farm--_la grange bataillée_--with fortified towers, owned in the twelfth century by the nuns of Ste-Opportune. At No. 10 we see the handsome _hôtel_ with fine staircase and statues, built in 1785 for a gallant captain of the Gardes Françaises. There in the days of Napoléon III was the Cercle Romantique, where Victor Hugo, A. de Musset and other literary celebrities were wont to meet. CHAPTER XXXVI ON THE SLOPES OF THE _BUTTE_ The Rue du Faubourg Montmartre is one of the most ancient of Paris roadways, for it led, from the earliest days of French history, to the hill-top where St-Denis and his two companions had been put to death. Only once has the ancient name been changed--at the Revolution, when it was for a time Faubourg Marat. We see here a few old-time houses. The bathing establishment at No. 4 was a private _hôtel_ in the days of Louis XV. Scribe lived at No. 7. The ancient cemetery _chapelle_, St-Jean-Porte-Latine, stood from 1780-1836 on the site of No. 60.