The favourite point of descent for visitors to the catacombs is in the ominously-named Rue d’Enfer (the origin of the name has been already given); and here the visitor finds himself with the Children’s Asylum and the Convent of the Visitation on the one hand, and on the other the Convent of the Good Shepherd; behind which may be seen, at the end of the Luxemburg Gardens, the tower and cupola of the Observatory. The Children’s Asylum is really a foundling hospital, established in an ancient building given by Gaston, Duke of Orleans, to the priests of the Oratory in 1655. For a long time the duty of gathering up and educating deserted children, and in particular new-born babes exposed, defenceless, to the inclemency of the weather, belonged, as a special Christian prerogative, to the bishop of Paris; and in the cathedral stood a bedstead, fastened into the pavement, on which, on fête days, children were exposed in order to awaken the charity of the public. Close to the bed were two or three nurses and a basin for the receipt of alms. This charity, of somewhat primitive type, gave rise to abuses. The nurses of the unknown children would now and then become tired of them, and got rid of them by simply selling them. It is said that at the Port Saint-Landry children fetched twenty sous apiece. Those of the foundlings who did not die helped to swell the number of the vagabonds, beggars, and thieves. Such was the scandalous state of things which St. Vincent de Paul undertook to reform when he founded in 1638, near the gate of Saint-Victor, an asylum for foundlings directed by ladies of charity. In 1641 Louis XIII. ensured to it an annuity of four thousand livres (francs), which in 1644 was raised to twelve thousand. After being moved from place to place, the institution was located at a house in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, of which the first stone was laid in 1676 by Queen Marie-Thérèse, with a subsidiary establishment in connection with Notre Dame. At present foundlings and poor orphans are received at the asylum of Les Enfants Assistés from the first day of their birth until their twelfth year. Immediately after their admission the children are sent into the country, where the newly-born are entrusted to nurses, while the elder ones are placed with artisans or farmers. The asylum receives, moreover, for a time, the children of hospital patients and of persons arrested or condemned for criminal offences. The number of children belonging to the latter category averages some four thousand a year, for whom 542 beds have been provided. The general expenses of the asylum exceed annually two millions and a half of francs (£100,000). Opposite the Children’s Asylum are the lofty walls of the convent of the Good Shepherd, administered by the lady hospitallers of Saint-Thomas de Villeneuve, for the benefit of penitent women.