Turning into Rue St-Paul we see at No. 35 the doorway of the demolished hôtel de Sève. In the Passage St-Paul, till 1877 Passage St-Louis, we find at No. 7 the presbytère, once, tradition says, a pied-à-terre of the grand Condé, and at No. 38 an old courtyard. At No. 36 vestiges of the prison originally part of the convent founded by St. Éloi in the time of Dagobert.[C] The arched Passage St-Pierre which led in olden days to the cemetery St-Pol, the burial-place of so many notable persons: Rabelais, Mansart, etc., and of prisoners from the Bastille, the man in the iron mask among them, has lately been swept away, with some walls of the old convent close up against it. The Manège till recent days at No. 30 was in days past a favourite meeting place of the people when in disaccord with the authorities in politics or on industrial questions. At No. 31 we look into Rue Éginhard, the Ruelle St-Pol of the fourteenth century; the walls of some of its houses once formed part of the old church St-Pol. At No. 8 we see the square turret of an old-hôtel St-Maur. At No. 4, l’hôtel de Vieuville, an interesting fifteenth-and sixteenth-century building, condemned to demolition, which has been inhabited by notable personages of successive periods. Passing through the black-walled court we mount a fine old-time staircase to find halls with beautiful mouldings, a wonderful frescoed ceiling, etc. etc., all in the possession at present of a well-known antiquarian. No. 5, doorway of l’hôtel de Lignerac. In Rue Ave-Maria, its site covered in past days by two old convents, we see at No. 15 an hôtel where was once the tennis-court of the Croix-Noire, in its day the “Illustre Théâtre” with Molière as its chief and whence the great tragedian was led for debt to durance vile at the Châtelet. No. 2 was once “la Boucherie Ave-Maria.”
Rue Charlemagne was known by various names till this last one given in 1844—one of its old names, Rue des Prêtres, is still seen engraved in the wall at No. 7. The petit Lycée Charlemagne has among its walls part of one of the ancient towers of the boundary wall of Philippe-Auguste which passed in a straight line to the Seine at this point. It is known as Tour Montgomery and shelters a ... gas meter! The remains of another tower are seen behind the gymnasium. Before 1908 the last remaining walls of the hôtel du Prévôt still stood in Passage Charlemagne, a picturesque turreted Renaissance bit of “Old Paris” let out in tenements, the last vestiges of the historic mansion where many notable persons, royal and other, had sojourned. Interesting old-time features are seen at Nos. 18, 21, 22, 25; No. 25 underwent restoration in recent years.
RUE DU PRÉVÔT
In Rue du Prévôt we see more old-time vestiges. Rue du Figuier dates from about 1300 when a fig-tree flourished there, cut down three centuries later. Nos. 19-15, now a Jewish hospice, was the abode of the Miron, royal physicians from 1550 to 1680. Every house shows some relic. At No. 5 we come upon an old well and steps in the courtyard. No. 8 was perhaps the home of Rabelais. At No. 1 we find ourselves before the turreted hôtel de Sens, built between 1474 and 1519, on the site of a private mansion given by Charles V to the archbishops of Sens, who at that time had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Paris. Ecclesiastics of historic fame, and at one time Marguerite de Valois, la Reine Margot, dwelt there during the succeeding 150 years. Then Paris became an archbishopric, and this fine hôtel de Sens was abandoned—let. It has served as a coaching house, a jam manufactory, finally became a glass store and factory, and in part a Jewish synagogue. In Rue du Fauconnier, Nos. 19, 17, 15, are ancient. Rue des Jardins, where stretched the gardens of the old Palais St-Pol, has none but ancient houses. At No. 5 we see a hook which served of yore to hold the chain stretched across the street to close it. Molière lived there in 1645. Rabelais died there.
HÔTEL DE SENS