Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff
CHAPTER XXVI
376 words | Chapter 37
ROUND ABOUT THE CARREFOUR DE LA CROIX-ROUGE
Passing to the western half of the arrondissement, we turn into the
modern Rue de Rennes, running south from Place St-Germain-des-Prés along
the lines of razed convent buildings or their vanished gardens. The
short Rue Gozlin opening out of it dates from the thirteenth century,
its present name recording that of a bishop of Paris who defended the
city against invading Normans in the ninth century. Two only of the
houses we see there now are ancient, Nos. 1 and 5. At No. 50 we see the
seventeenth-century entrance of the old Cour du Dragon, with its balcony
and huge piece of sculpture dating from 1735; the quaint houses of the
alley, with its gutter in the middle, were in past days the habitation
of ironmongers. It leads down into the old Rue du Dragon, which began as
Rue du Sépulcre, being then the property of the monks of St-Sépulcre. A
fine _hôtel_ stood once at either end. At No. 76 we see the remains of a
mansion, taken later for a convent, where Bossuet sojourned. Nos.
147-127 are on the site of a Roman cemetery.
Rue Cherche-Midi, once Chasse-Midi, takes its name from an ancient
sign-board illustrating the old French proverb: “Chercher midi à
quatorze heures,” i.e. to look for something wide of the mark. Many
old-time houses still stand along its course. It starts from the
Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, where, before a cross in the centre of the
Carrefour, criminals and political offenders were put to death. The name
is probably due to a sign-board rather than to the alleged colour of
this cross. In this quiet spot, as historians have remarked, a flaring
red cross would hardly have been in keeping with the temper of its
patrician inhabitants. The Revolutionists called it Carrefour du
Bonnet-Rouge. At No. 12 we see a fine _grille_. One of the most
interesting historically inhabited _hôtels_ of the city stood till 1907
on the site of No. 37, in olden times the dependency of a convent,
latterly hôtel des Conseils-de-Guerre, razed to make way for the
brand-new boulevard Raspail. The military prison opposite is on the site
of a convent organized in the house of an exiled Calvinist, razed in
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