Rue du Vieux-Colombier, recalling by its name the abbey dove-cot, has known among its inhabitants Boileau, Lesage, the husband of Mme Récamier. Few ancient houses are left there now. We see bas-reliefs at No. 1.
Rue de Mézières is so called from the hôtel Mézières given in 1610 to the Jesuits as their noviciat. No. 9 is ancient. Rue Madame, which it crosses, existed under different names from the sixteenth century, part of it as Rue du Gindre, a reference to the abbey bakehouse once near, for a gindre is the baker’s chief man. The name of Madame was given in 1790 to the part newly opened across the Luxembourg gardens by the new occupant of the palace, the comte de Province, brother of Louis XVI, in honour of his wife. That did not hinder the count from building in the same street a fine mansion for his mistress, comtesse de Balbi, razed some years ago. Flandrin lived at No. 54. Renan at No. 55. Rue Cassette shows us a series of past-time houses, many of them associated with the memory of notable persons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Alfred de Musset lived there. No. 12 was in the hands of the Carmelites till the Revolution. No. 21 belonged to the Jesuits till their expulsion in 1672. In the garden of No. 24 the vicar of St-Sulpice lay hidden after escaping from the Carmes at the time of the Massacre. Rue Honoré-Chevalier, in the days of Henri IV Rue du Chevalier Honoré, shows in its name another link with the abbey bakehouse, for it was that of the master-baker who cut the street across his own property.
The church St-Sulpice, with its very characteristic façade, the work of Servandoni, was begun in the middle of the seventeenth century on the site of a thirteenth-century church dedicated to St. Pierre, but was not finished till nearly a century later. Servandoni’s towers were disapproved of; one was demolished and rebuilt by Chalgrin. The other remains as Servandoni designed it. Entering the church we see its walls covered with frescoes and paintings; they are all by celebrated artists. Those in the lady-chapel by Van Loo, the rest by Delacroix and other masters of modern times. The high altar is unusually large. The shells for holy water were a gift from the Republic of Venice to François I. The pulpit with its carved figures was given by Richelieu. In the Chapelle-des-Étudiants is an organ that belonged to Marie-Antoinette for the use of her young son, and has been played by Glück and Mozart. A sacrilegious fête was held in the church in Revolution days and a great banquet given in honour of Napoléon. The grand organ is very fine, its woodwork designed by Chalgrin. The services are noted for the beauty of their music. The place dates from 1800, built on the site of the ancient seminary “des Sulpiciens,” razed by Napoléon. The present Séminaire, no longer a seminary—forfeited to the State in 1906—was built in 1820-25. The immense fountain was put up there nearly half a century later, an old smaller one taken away.
Almost parallel with Rue Bonaparte the old Rue de Seine stretches from the banks of the river to Rue St-Sulpice. It dates in its most ancient part from 1250 as the Pré-aux-Clercs road. No. 1 is a dependency of the Institute. No. 6 is on the site of a palais built by la Reine Margot on leaving l’hôtel de Sens, some traces of which are seen among the buildings on the spot, and part of the Queen’s gardens. No. 10 was formerly the Art School of Rosa Bonheur. At No. 12 are vestiges of l’hôtel de la Roche-Guyon and Turenne (1620). Nos. 41, 42, 57, 56, 101 show interesting seventeenth-century features. Rue Mazarine is another parallel street—a street of ancient houses. No. 12 is notable as the site of the Jeu de Paume, a tennis-court, where in 1643 Molière set up his Illustre théâtre. No. 30, hôtel des Pompes, where died in 1723 the founder of the Paris Fire Brigade; a remarkable man he ... an actor in Molière’s troup, the father of thirty-two children! On the site of No. 42 stood once another tennis-court, which became the théâtre Guénégaud, where the first attempts at Opera were made.
Rue de Nesle, till the middle of last century Rue d’Anjou-Dauphine, stretches across the site of part of the famous hôtel de Nesle; a subterranean passage formerly ran beneath it. The interesting house No. 8 is one of the many said to be a palace of la Reine Blanche, the mother of St. Louis. There were, however, as a matter of fact, many “Reines Blanches” in France in olden times, for royal French widows wore white, not black for mourning.
Rue de Nevers (thirteenth century) was in past days closed at both ends and called therefore Rue des Deux-Portes. In Rue Guénégaud we find at No. 29 a tower of Philippe-Auguste’s wall. All its houses are ancient. At No. 1 we see the remains of a famous théâtre des Marionnettes.
Rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, in a line with Rue Mazarine, erewhile Rue des Fossés-St-Germain, is full of historic memories. The Café Procope at No. 13, now a restaurant, was the first café opened in Paris (1689). Noted men of every succeeding century drank, talked, made merry or aired their grievances within its walls: modern paintings there record the features of some of them. No. 14 was the theatre from which the street takes its name, succeeded by the Odéon (see [p. 184]). Rue Grégoire-de-Tours shows us several curious old houses. At No. 32 we see finely chiselled statues on the façade. Rue de Buci, originally Rue de Bussy from the buis—box-bush—once growing there, the ecclesiastical “Via Sancti Germani de Pratis,” later Rue du Pilori, passed in ancient days through Philippe-Auguste’s wall by a great gate with two towers opened for the purpose. For it was an all-important thoroughfare. The carrefour whence it started was the busiest spot of the whole district. Persons of ill-repute or evil conduct were chained there; those condemned to death were hung there. Sedan chairs for the peaceable were hired there. Thither Revolutionist volunteers flocked to be enrolled in 1792, and there the first of the September massacres was perpetrated. Most of the ancient buildings along its course have been replaced by modern structures. The street has been in part widened; the site of some old structures lately razed has not yet been built on.
Rue Dauphine, named in honour of the son of Henri IV, later Louis XIII, dates from 1607. Most of the houses date from that century or the century following. Rue Mazet, opening out of it at No. 49, was famed in past days for the old inn and coaching station—“le Cheval Blanc.” It existed from 1612 to 1906. Near it was the restaurant Magny, where literary lions of the early years of the nineteenth century—G. Sand, Flaubert, the Goncourts, etc.—met and dined. Some old houses still stand there.
COUR DE ROHAN