[Footnote 225: Charles Normand, founder of the Societe des Amis des Monuments, appeals for information concerning the fate of the old inscription commemorating the laying of the foundation stone of the former Hotel de Ville in 1533. It is said to have been appropriated (_se serait empare_) by an Englishman in 1874.] We pass to the E. of the Hotel, where stands the church of St. Gervais and St. Protais, whose facade by Solomon Debrosse (1617) "is regarded," says Felibien (1725), "as a masterpiece of art by the best architectural authorities" ("_les plus intelligens en architecture_"). The church, which has been several times rebuilt, occupies the site of the old sixth-century building, near which stood the elm tree where suitors waited for justice to be done by the early kings. "_Attendre sous l'orme_" ("To wait under the elm") is still a proverbial expression for waiting till Doomsday. [Illustration: ST. GERVAIS.] The lofty Gothic interior, dating from the late fifteenth century, is lighted by some sixteenth and seventeenth-century stained glass, and among the pictures that have escaped transportation to the Louvre may be noted a lunette over the clergy stalls R. of the nave, God the Father, by Perugino; and a remarkable tempera painting, The Passion, attributed to Duerer's pupil, Aldegraever, in the fifth chapel, L. aisle. The curious old panelled and painted little Chapelle Scarron (fourth to the L.) and the sixteenth-century carved choir stalls from the abbey church of Port Royal are of interest: the beautiful vaulting of the Lady Chapel is also noteworthy. Some good modern paintings may be seen (with difficulty) in the side chapels. The Rue Francois Miron leading E. from the Place St. Gervais was part of the Rue St. Antoine, before the cutting of the Rue de Rivoli, and the chief artery from the E. to the centre of Paris. On the R. of this street, No. 26, Rue Geoffrey l'Asnier, is the fine portal of the seventeenth-century Hotel de Chalons, where the whilom ambassador to England, Antoine de la Borderie, lived (1608). Yet further on in the Rue Francois Miron is the Rue de Jouy: at No. 7, is the charming Hotel d'Aumont by Hardouin Mansard. We continue our eastward way along the Rue Francois Miron and among other interesting houses note No. 68, the princely Hotel de Beauvais, erected 1660, for Anne of Austria's favourite _femme de chambre_, Catherine Henriette Belier, wife of Pierre Beauvais. The street facade has been much disfigured and the magnificent wrought-iron balcony, whence Anne, Mazarin and Turenne, together with the Queen of England, watched the solemn entry of Louis XIV. and his consort Maria Therese, has been destroyed: but the beautiful circular porch with its Doric columns and metopes and the stately courtyard where the architect, Jean Lepautre, has triumphed over the irregularity of the site and created a marvellous symmetry of form--all this still remains, together with the noble stairway on the L., decorated by the Flemish