Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
In Rue des Fossés St-Bernard, stretching along the line of
Philippe-Auguste’s wall, between the site of two great gates: Porte
St-Victor, a spot desecrated by the massacres of September, and Porte
St-Bernard, we see Halle-aux-Vins, where abbey buildings stood of yore.
The Halle-aux-Cuirs, in Rue Censier, is on the site of the famous
orphanage “La Miséricorde,” called vulgarly “les Cent Filles” or “les
Cent Vierges.” The apprentice from the Arts and Crafts Institution, who
should choose one of these orphan maidens for his wife, obtained as her
dowry the privilege of becoming at once a full member of the
Corporation.
In Rue de la Clef we have at No. 56 the site of part of the notorious
prison Ste-Pélagie. No. 26 is still owned by the Savouré, whose
ancestors kept the school where Jerôme Bonaparte and many of his
compeers were educated. Rue du Fer-à-Moulin, dating from the twelfth
century, a stretch of blackened walls, has been known by many names. In
the little Rue Scipion leading out of it we see at No. 13 the _hôtel_
built in the sixteenth century for the Tuscan, Scipion Sardini, who came
to France in the suite of Catherine de’ Medici, a rich and rather
scandalous financier; terra-cotta medallions ornament its walls. It
serves now as the bakehouse of the Paris hospitals. In the square
opposite we see the curious piece of statuary: “des Boulangers,” by
Charpentier.
Rue Monge, running from boulevard St-Germain to Avenue des Gobelins, was
cut through old streets of the district in 1859. A fountain Louis XV
brought here from its original site, Rue Childebert, was set up in the
square, and many other old-time relics: statues from the ancient hôtel
de Ville, débris from the Palais de l’Industrie, burnt down in 1897; a
copy of the statue of Voltaire by Houdin, etc.
Rue d’Arras, so named from a college once there, began as Rue des Murs,
referring to the walls of Philippe-Auguste. The concert hall we see was
not long ago Père Loyson’s church. L’École Communale, No. 19 Rue des
Boulangers, is on the site of part of the convent des “Filles
Anglaises,” which had existed there from 1644--razed in 1861.
Rue Rollin began in the sixteenth century as Rue des Moulins-à-vent. On
the site of the house at No. 2 Pascal died in 1662. No. 4, with its fine
staircase, its _grille_ and ancient well in the courtyard, was the home
of Bernardine de St. Pierre, during the years he wrote his world-known
_Paul and Virginie_. Rollin lived and died (1741) at No. 8. Descartes
lived at No. 14. When the street was longer and known as Rue
Neuve-St-Etienne, Manon Philipon, Madame Roland of later days, was a
pupil in the _annexe_ of the English Augustine convent on a site crossed
now by Rue Monge and Rue de Navarre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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