The northern end of Rue du Faubourg St-Martin was long known as Rue du Faubourg St-Laurent; zealously stamping out all names recording saints, the Revolutionists called this long thoroughfare Faubourg du Nord. We find ancient houses, vestiges of past ages, at every step, and the modern structures seen at intervals are on sites of historic interest. The baker’s shop at No. 44, “A l’Industrie,” claims to have existed from the year 1679. No. 59 is the site of the first Old Catholic church, founded in 1831 by abbé Chatel. The Mairie at No. 76 covers the site of an ancient barracks, and of a bridge which once spanned the brook Ménilmontant. An ancient arch was found beneath the soil in 1896. Rue des Marais, which opens at No. 86, dates from the seventeenth century. Here till 1860 stood the dwelling of the famous public headsman Sanson and of his descendants, _painted red_! At No. 119 we see the _chevet_ of the church St-Laurent, the only ancient part of the church as we know it. In the little Rue Sibour, opening at No. 121, recording the name of the archbishop of Paris who died in 1857, we find an ancient house, now a bathing establishment. No. 160 covers land once the graveyard of les Récollets. The short Rue Chaudron records the name of a fountain once there. The bulky fountains higher up are modern (1849), built by public subscription. Rue du Château d’Eau was formed of two old streets: Rue Neuve St-Nicolas-St-Martin and Rue Neuve St-Jean, joined in 1851 and named after a fountain formerly in the centre of the what is now Place de la République. At No. 39 we see the house said to be the smallest in the city--its breadth one mètre. In the walls of the tobacconist’s shop at No. 55, “la Carotte Percée,” we see holes made by the bullets of the Communards in 1871. At No. 6 of the modern Rue Pierre-Bullet, now a gimp factory, we find a house of remarkable interest, beautifully decorated by its builder and owner, the artist Gonthière, who had invented the process of dead-gilding. Ruin fell on the unhappy artist. His house was seized in 1781 and he died in great poverty in 1813. Crossing the whole northern length of the arrondissement is the busy commercial Rue Lafayette, its one point of interest for us the church St-Vincent-de-Paul, built in the form of a Roman basilica between the years 1824-44, on the site of a Lazariste structure known as the Belvédère. Within we see fine statuary; and glorious frescoes, the work of Flandrin, cover the walls on every side. None of the streets in the vicinity of the church show points of historic interest.