PORTE DE CLISSON
(Archives)
Rue des Quatre-Fils on the north side of the Archives and its adjoining buildings, known in past times as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, recalls to mind the romantic adventures of four sons of a certain Aymon, sung by a thirteenth-century troubadour. Most of its houses are ancient. Leading out of it is the old Rue Charlot with numerous seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century houses or vestiges. We peep into the Ruelle Sourdis, a gutter running down the middle of it, once shut in by iron gates and boundary stones. At No. 5 we see what remains of the hôtel Sourdis, which in 1650 belonged to Cardinal Retz. The church St-Jean-St-François, opposite, is the ancient chapel of the convent St-François-des-Capucins du Marais. It replaced the old church St-Jean-en-Grève, destroyed at the Revolution, and here we see, surrounding the nave, painted copies of ancient tapestries telling the story of the miracle of the sacred Hostie which a Jew in mockery sought to destroy by burning. The fête of Reparation kept from the fourteenth century at the church of St-Jean and at the chapel les Billettes (see [p. 107]) has since 1867 been kept here. Here too, piously preserved, is the chasuble used by the Abbé Edgeworth at the last Mass heard before his execution by Louis XVI in the Temple prison hard by. In the short Rue du Perche behind the church, lived for a time at No. 7 bis Scarron’s young widow, destined to become Madame de Maintenon. Fine frescoes cover several of its ceilings. In Rue de Poitou we find more interesting old houses. In Rue de Normandie Nos. 10, 6, 9 show interesting features, old courtyards, etc. Turning from Rue Charlot into Rue Béranger, known until 1864 by the name of the Grand Prior of the Temple de Vendôme, we find the hôtel de Vendôme, Nos. 5 and 3, dating from 1752 where Béranger lived and died. At No. 11, now a business house, lived Berthier de Sauvigny, Intendant-Général de Paris in 1789, hung on a lamp-post after the taking of the Bastille, one of the first victims of the Revolution.
RUELLE DE SOURDIS
Running parallel to Rue Charlot, starting from the little Rue du Perche, Rue Saintonge, formed by joining two seventeenth-century streets, Rue Poitou and Rue Touraine, shows us a series of ancient dwellings. From October, 1789, to 15th July, 1791, Robespierre lived at No. 64. A fine columned entrance court at No. 5 has been supplanted by a brand-new edifice. The hôtel at No. 4, dating originally from about 1611, was rebuilt in 1745.
Rue de Turenne, running in this arrondissement from Rue Charlot to the corner of the Place des Vosges, began as Rue Louis, then in its upper part was Rue Boucherat, as an ancient inscription at No. 133 near the fountain Boucherat records. From the old street whence it starts, Rue St.-Antoine in the 4th arrondissement, it is a long line of ancient hôtels, the homes in bygone days of men of notable names and doings; one side of the convent des Filles-du-Calvaire stretched between the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire and Rue Pont-au-Choux. No. 76 was the home of the last governor of the Bastille, Monsieur de Launay. The church of St-Denis-du-St-Sacrament at No. 70 was built in 1835 on the site of the chapel of a convent razed in 1826, previously a mansion of Maréchal de Turenne. At No. 56, Scarron lived and died. No. 54 was the abode of the comte de Montrésor, noted in the wars of the Fronde. At No. 41, fresh water flows from the fontaine de Joyeuse on the site of the ancient hôtel de Joyeuse. We find a beautiful staircase in almost every one of these old hôtels.
