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Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff

CHAPTER XLI

400 words  |  Chapter 57

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PORT-ROYAL ARRONDISSEMENT XIV. (OBSERVATOIRE) The boundary-line between arrondissements XIII and XIV is Rue de la Santé, the name of the great Paris prison which stands there. It brings us to the vicinity of the Paris Observatory and of the Hôpital Cochin. The prison is a modern structure on a site known as la Charbonnerie, because of coal-mines once there. The Observatory, built over ancient quarries, was founded by Louis XIV’s minister Colbert, in 1667. A spiral staircase of six hundred steps leads down to the cellars that erewhile were mines. It was enlarged in 1730 and again in 1810, and the cupolas were added at a later date. A stretch of Rue du Faubourg St-Jacques borders its eastern side, and there on the opposite side we see l’Hôpital Cochin, founded in 1780 by the then vicar of St-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, whose name it bears--enlarged in recent years. At No. 34 of Rue du Faubourg St-Jacques we turn into the seventeenth-century Rue Cassini, so named in 1790 to memorize the seventeenth-century organizer of the Observatory. Here Balzac lived in 1829 in a house no longer standing. The great painter J. P. Laurens has an _hôtel_ here. We find a Louis XVI monument in a court at No. 10. Subterranean passages, made and used in a past age by smugglers, have been discovered beneath the pavement of this old street. Rue Denfert-Rochereau has its first numbers in arrondissement V. This was the “Via Infera,” the Lower Road of the Romans. The name _Enfer_, given later, is said to refer, not to the place of torment, but to the hellish noise persistently made in a _hôtel_ there built by a son of Hugues Capet, the hôtel Vauvert, hence the French expression, “envoyer les gens au diable vert”--_vert_ shortened from _Vauvert_, i.e. send them off--far away--to the devil! _Enfer_ became _d’Enfert_, to which in 1878 was added the name of the general who defended Belfort in 1870: not exactly a happy combination! Many persons of note have dwelt in this old street. No. 25 (arrondissement V) is an ancient Carmelite convent, built, tradition says, on the site of a pagan temple: an oratory-chapel dedicated to St. Michael covered part of the site in early Christian days and a public cemetery. An ancient crypt still exists. It was in the convent here that Louise de la Vallière came to work till her death, in
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1. Chapter 1 2. CHAPTER I 3. 1784. They were burnt down in 1828 and replaced by the Galerie 4. CHAPTER II 5. CHAPTER III 6. 1790. More than a million bodies are said to have been buried in that 7. 1850. The beautiful portal of the ancient bureau des Marchandes-lingères 8. CHAPTER IV 9. CHAPTER V 10. 1899. Rue d’Uzès crosses the site of the ancient hôtel d’Uzès. Rue de 11. 1823. Four short streets of ancient date cross Rue de la Lune: Rue 12. CHAPTER VI 13. CHAPTER VII 14. 1882. At No. 153 was the eighteenth-century _bureau des 15. CHAPTER VIII 16. CHAPTER IX 17. CHAPTER X 18. CHAPTER XI 19. 1855. The short Rue de la Tâcherie (from _tâche_: task, work) crossing 20. 1320. Its name shortened from _mauvaise buée_, i.e. _mauvaise fumée_, is 21. CHAPTER XII 22. CHAPTER XIII 23. 1802. Here Fouquet and his son, Mme de Chantal, and the Marquis de 24. CHAPTER XIV 25. CHAPTER XV 26. CHAPTER XVI 27. CHAPTER XVII 28. CHAPTER XVIII 29. CHAPTER XIX 30. CHAPTER XX 31. CHAPTER XXI 32. CHAPTER XXII 33. CHAPTER XXIII 34. 25. Sardou in his youth at No. 26. Augustin Thierry lived for ten years 35. CHAPTER XXIV 36. CHAPTER XXV 37. CHAPTER XXVI 38. 1851. Nos. 85, 87, 89, eighteenth century, belonged to a branch of the 39. CHAPTER XXVII 40. CHAPTER XXVIII 41. CHAPTER XXIX 42. CHAPTER XXX 43. CHAPTER XXXI 44. 1860. It was a favourite street for residence in the nineteenth century. 45. CHAPTER XXXII 46. 122. Eugène Sue at No. 55. Comtesse de la Valette at No. 44, a _hôtel_ 47. CHAPTER XXXIII 48. CHAPTER XXXIV 49. CHAPTER XXXV 50. 1898. Marshal Ney lived at No. 12. In Rue de la Tour des Dames a 51. CHAPTER XXXVI 52. CHAPTER XXXVII 53. CHAPTER XXXVIII 54. CHAPTER XXXIX 55. 1852. No. 73 is the Hospice des Vieillards, worked by the Petites 56. CHAPTER XL 57. CHAPTER XLI 58. 1710. That first convent and church were razed in 1797. The Carmelites 59. 1713. Rue de Vanves, leading to what was in olden days the village of 60. CHAPTER XLII 61. CHAPTER XLIII 62. 1879. She had planned filling it with her magnificent collection of 63. CHAPTER XLIV 64. 20. Rue de l’Annonciation began in the early years of the eighteenth 65. CHAPTER XLV 66. 1898. Avenue de Wagram in its course from the Arc de Triomphe to Place 67. CHAPTER XLVI 68. CHAPTER XLVII 69. CHAPTER XLVIII 70. CHAPTER XLIX 71. 1783. This name was changed more than once in subsequent years. After 72. 1850. The novelist Paul de Kock lived at No 8. No. 17 was the abode of 73. CHAPTER L 74. CHAPTER LI 75. 1751. Many names of historic note are associated with the handsome house 76. CHAPTER LII 77. 1718. It was then rebuilt minus its wooden houses. The present structure 78. 1786. Pont Notre-Dame was the “bridge of honour.” Sovereigns coming to

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