Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff
1850. The beautiful portal of the ancient bureau des Marchandes-lingères
260 words | Chapter 7
was placed there in more recent times. The ground floor of most of the
old houses of this street are ancient _charniers_, many of them built by
one Nicolas Flamel. Therein were laid in past days the bones
periodically gathered from the graveyard. The name “Cabaret du Caveau”
at No. 15 tells its own tale. In Rue Berger, formed along the line of
several demolished streets of old, we see some ancient signs, but little
else of interest. Old signs too, in Rue de la Cossonnerie, so named from
the _cossonniers_, i.e. poultry-merchants, whose market was here and
which was known as early as 1182 as Via Cochonerie. Rue des Prêcheurs is
another twelfth-century street and there we see many ancient houses:
Nos. 6-8, etc. Rue Pirouette, one of the most ancient of Paris streets,
recalls the days of the _pilori des Halles_, when its victims, forced to
turn from side to side, made _la pirouette_. Here the duc d’Angoulême
had his head cut off under Louis XI, and the duc de Nemours in 1477. At
No. 5 we see the ancient doorway of the demolished hôtellerie du Haume
(fourteenth century), at No. 9 was the cabaret de l’Ange Gabriel (now
razed), at No. 13 vestiges of an ancient mansion. A few old houses still
stand in the Rue de la Grande Truanderie (thirteenth century). Rue de la
Petite Truanderie, of the same date, was once noted for its old well,
“le Puits d’Amour,” in the small square half-way down the street, of old
the _truands’_ quarter (_see_ p. 56).
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