As a matter of fact, royalty never had much to do with this hybrid quarter of Paris, though, indeed, its past was romantic enough, bordering as it does upon the real Latin Quarter of the students. Bounded on one side by the immense domain of the Luxembourg, it stretched away indefinitely beyond Vaugiraud, almost to Clamart and Sceaux.
At No. 27 Boulevard Montparnasse is an elaborate seventeenth house-front half hidden by the "modern style" flats of twentieth century Paris. This relic of the grand siècle, with its profusion of sculptured details, was the house bought by Louis XIV about 1672 and given to the "widow Scarron," the "young and beautiful widow of the court," as a recompense for the devotion with which she had educated the three children of the Marquise de Montespan, who, in 1673, were legitimatized as princes of the royal house—the Duc de Maine, the Comte de Vexin and Mademoiselle de Mantes.
Madame Scarron, who became in time Madame de Maintenon, the "vraie reine du roi," died in 1719, and the house passed to La Tour d'Auvergne.
On this same side of the river are the Palais de l'Institut and the Palais Bourbon. The Palais de l'Institut, or Palais Mazarin, is hardly to be considered one of the domestic establishments, the dwellings of kings, with which contemporary Paris was graced. It was but a creation of Mazarin, the minister, on the site of the Hôtel de Nesle, and was first known as the Palais des Quatre Nations, where were educated, at the expense of the Cardinal, sixty young men of various nationalities.
The old chapel has since been transformed into the "Salle des Séances" of the Institut de France, the Five French Academies. The black, gloomy façade of the edifice, to-day, in spite of the cupola which gives a certain inspiring dignity, is not lovely, and tradition and sentiment alone give it its present interest, though it is undeniably picturesque.
An inscription used to be on the pedestal of one of the fountains opposite the entrance which read:
"Superbe habitant du desert
En ce lieu, dis moi, que fais tu
—Tu le vois à mon habit vert
Je suis membre de l'institut."
If the inscription were still there it would save the asking of a lot of silly questions by strangers who pass this way for the first time. The Palais de l'Institut is one of the sights of Paris, and its functions are notable, though hardly belonging to the romantic school of past days, for at present poets often make their entrée via Montmartre's "Chat Noir," or are elected simply because some other candidate has been "blackbouled."
Still following along the left bank of the Seine one comes to the Palais Bourbon, the Chambre des Deputés, as it is better known. This edifice, where now sit the French deputies, was built by Girardini for the Dowager Duchesse de Bourbon in 1722, and, though much changed during various successive eras, is still a unique variety of architectural embellishment which is not uncouth, nor yet wholly appealing. Napoleon remade the heavily imposing façade, so familiar to all who cross the river by the Pont de la Concorde, but its grimness is its charm rather than its grace.
