At No. 42 in the Rue de Sèvres stood the hospital or asylum (hospice) for incurable women, founded by the charity of Marguerite Roulié, assisted by Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, Grand Almoner of France. But the institution has now been transferred to Ivry in a large building, where incurable men are also received. The house in which the original hospital for incurables was established is now occupied by the Laennec Asylum, containing upwards of 300 beds, of which nearly fifty are for surgical cases. Then there are charitable houses for sick and for convalescent children. In the Rue de Sèvres (Nos. 93 to 95) is the monastery of the priests of the mission of St. Lazare, which, since 1816, has occupied the mansion of the Duc de l’Orges.
The chapel dedicated to St. Vincent de Paul, founder of the Lazarists, contains the relics of the saint, which were transferred to their present abode on the 29th of April, 1830. Seventeen bishops, with all the clergy of Paris and of the diocese, took part in the ceremony. The brothers of the Christian schools, also the sisters of Charity and of the Foundlings, assisted; in all upwards of 10,000 persons. This was for the[{196}] Parisians the great event of the spring of the year 1830, which, however, in the month of July was to witness a manifestation of a very different character: the Revolution that brought Louis Philippe to the throne.
THE BLIND SCHOOL: IN THE WORK-ROOM.
At the right corner of the Avenue of the Invalides stood, up to the time of the Revolution of 1789, a country house belonging to the sculptor Pigalle. The congregation of Notre Dame des Chanoinesses Régulières de Ste. Augustine, founded there towards 1820 a house of education, which has remained celebrated under the name of the Convent of the Birds. Beyond the Boulevard Montparnasse, which branches off at this point towards the Boulevard des Invalides, is the House of the Infant Jesus, founded in 1751 by the zeal of the Abbé Languet, Curé of St. Sulpice, by the liberality of the Marquise de Lassay, and under the patronage of Queen Marie Lesczinska, in favour of thirty poor and noble young ladies; to become in 1802 a hospital for sick children. Here the mortality is at the rate of two out of eleven, which is almost twice the average mortality in the hospitals for adults. “The idea of creating a special hospital for children,” said Professor Bouchardat, “excellent at first sight, is fatal for the unhappy ones who are admitted.” Contagious diseases spread, as a matter of fact, with particular rapidity among children. To counteract this evil the Hospice des Enfants Malades has been provided with a garden, 31,000 square metres in extent, so as to permit as much as possible the isolation of the little patients.
Besides the inmates of the Paris hospitals a great number of out-patients receive treatment within their walls.
An important institution in Paris, to which we have practically no counterpart in England, is one for the nursing of the indigent poor at their homes. It is admirably organised, and has done a great deal of inestimable work; and Dr. Le Fort is as proud of it as he seems ashamed of the Paris hospitals.[{197}]
On the 25th of May, 1791, the municipality of Paris was charged by the administration with the distribution amongst the different parishes of the funds raised for the poor. On the 5th of August a municipal “Commission of Benevolence” was formed to consider the best method of administering aid to the indigent; and it is to this commission that the creation of the “offices of benevolence” is due. At the present time these offices relieve some twenty Paris mayoralties, besides freeing the hands of the hospital administration. Each office consists of the mayor of the arrondissement, as president; two assistants, twelve administrators, an unlimited number of commissionaires and sisters of charity, and a secretarial treasurer. Attached to each office are physicians and surgeons, midwives, etc. The scheme comprises, in each arrondissement, two or three “houses of assistance” where the poor come to seek aid for their sick friends, and where patients inscribed on the list of the indigent may have gratuitous consultations, medicine, and so forth. Fifty-three such houses are distributed over the capital.