Numerous ancient streets and some modern ones, on time-honoured ground, lead out of Rue Vaugirard. Rue Bonaparte, extending to the banks of the Seine, was formed in 1852 of three old streets. Most of its houses are ancient or show vestiges of past ages and have historic associations. At No. 45 Gambetta dwelt in 1866. No. 36 was the home of Auguste Comte; on the site of No. 35 was the kitchen of the great abbey St-Germain-des-Prés, which stretched across the course of many streets in this district (_see_ p. 201). No. 20, l’hôtel du duc de Vendôme, son of Henri IV and Gabrielle d’Estrées. No. 19, hôtel de Rohan-Rochefort, where the wife of the unfortunate due d’Enghien, shot at Vincennes, used to receive her exiled husband in secret when he came in disguise to Paris. No. 17 is noted as the office till recent years of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, first issued there in 1829 as a magazine of travel! No. 14, École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, on the site of the convent des Petits-Augustins, founded by Margaret de Valois in 1605, of which some walls remain and to which in the nineteenth century were added the hôtels de Conti and de Bouillon, the latter known as hôtel de Chimay. The nucleus of the works of art here seen was a collection of sculptures and other precious relics saved from buildings shattered or suppressed in the days of the Revolution, reverently laid in what was called at first a _dépôt des ruines des Monuments_. The word _ruines_ was soon omitted and the _dépôt_ became the Musée des Monuments Français, under the able direction of Lenoir. But ruins are still to be seen there, splendid and historic ruins--the façade of the château d’Anet, built for Diane de Poitiers, and remains of many another superb _hôtel_ of bygone ages. A beautiful chapel, paintings by Delaroche, and Ingres, statuary, mouldings of Grecian and Roman sculpture, are among the treasures of the Beaux-Arts. Nos. 1 and 3, forming l’hôtel de Chevandon, was inhabited at one time by vicomte de Beauharnais, the Empress Joséphine’s first husband. [Illustration: L’ABBAYE ST-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS] Rue des Beaux-Arts, opened a century ago, has ever been the habitation of distinguished artists and men of letters. Rue Visconti, cut across the Petit Pré-aux-Clercs, the Students’ Fields, in the sixteenth century, bore till the middle of the nineteenth century the more characteristic name Rue des Marais-St-Germain. The Visconti it memoralizes was the architect of Napoléon’s tomb and of restoration work at the Louvre. In its early years it was a resort of Huguenots, and known therefore as the “Petite Genève.” It is very narrow and nearly every house is ancient; Racine died either at No. 13 or at 21. No. 17 was the printing-house founded by de Balzac, to whom it brought ruin. No. 21, hôtel de Ranes.