Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
of an old fountain once here, now placed near the fountain Médici of the
Luxembourg gardens. The publishing house Didot at No. 3 is on the site
of a handsome ancient mansion once the home of the children of Mme de
Montespan, sacrificed to the boulevard Raspail in 1907. Nos. 5-7 date
from the first years of the eighteenth century. The doors of the Mont de
Pitié are all that is left of hôtel de la Guiche once on the site.
Rue de Sèvres, forming in the greater part of its course the boundary
between arrondissements VI and VII, running on into arrondissement XV,
was known familiarly in old days as Rue de la Maladrerie, on account of
its numerous hospitals. They are numerous still. At No. 11 and No. 13 we
find remains of the couvent des Prémontrés Réformés founded by Anne
d’Autriche, 1661. Rue Récamier was recently opened on the site of the
famous Abbaye-aux-Bois, where for thirty years Mme de Récamier lived the
“simple life,” courted none the less by a crowd of ardent admirers--the
_tout Paris_ of that day. The Abbaye, as a convent, counted notable
women among its abbesses; at the Revolution it was suppressed and let
out in flats till its regrettable demolition in 1908. The Square Potain
close by, now known as Square du Bon Marché, is on the site of a
leper-house which dated from the reign of Philippe-Auguste. A convent
and adjoining buildings of ancient date were destroyed to allow
boulevard Raspail to pursue its course. An old house still stands at No.
26; vestiges at No. 31. At No. 42 we see the Hospice des Incurables,
founded in 1634 by Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld and known since 1878 as
l’Hospice Laennec. Here in 1819 died the woman Simon, the jailer of the
little dauphin “Louis XVII,” after a sojourn of twenty-five years. The
minister Turgot and other persons of note lie buried in the chapel. The
Egyptian fountain dates from 1806. At No. 84 we see very recently
erected houses let out in flats on the site of the couvent des Oiseaux,
dating from the early years of the eighteenth century--the prison du
Bonnet Rouge during the Revolution, a convent school and _pension_ in
1818 till its suppression in 1906. The “Oiseaux”--birds--were perhaps
those of an aviary, or maybe those painted by Pigalle on the walls of
one of the rooms. The Lazarist convent at No. 95 was previously a
private mansion dating from the time of Louis XV. The chapel dates from
1827 and sheltered for some years the remains of St-Vincent-de-Paul. In
the eighteenth century, on the site of No. 125, wild beast fights took
place. The last numbers of the street are in arrondissement XV. There we
see the ancient Benedictine convent, suppressed in 1779--become
l’Hôpital Necker. The hospital at No. 149 began life in 1676 as a
community of “_gentilshommes_”; seventy years later it was the “Maison
Royale de l’Enfant-Jésus” under the patronage of Marie Leczinska,
enlarged by the gift of an adjoining mansion. Closed at the Revolution,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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