Follow the Rue de l'Université and skirt the Lycée de Garçons, of which only the chapel and one of the buildings are left. The rest was burnt or destroyed by shell-fire.
DOOR OF THE PETIT LYCÉE,
5, Rue Vauthier-le-Noir. On either side of the arcade are heads of "Jean qui rit" and "Jean qui pleure."
The Lycée replaced the old Collège des Bons Enfants, founded in the Middle Ages, and rebuilt in the 16th century by the Cardinal de Lorraine, founder of the University of Rheims.
Of the old Collège, only the central part remained, in the second court built by Archbishop Charles Maurice Le Tellier in 1686 and the following years.
The gate of the Cour des Etudes dates from 1688.
The ancient door of the Collège—the tympana of whose arcading contain two laughing and crying heads—was transferred to the entrance of the Petit Lycée, at No. 5 of the street on the right of the Lycée (Rue Vauthier-le-Noir) (photo above).
Shortly after the Lycée, turn to the right into the Place Godinot, then take the Rue St. Pierre-les-Dames on the right. At No. 8 are the ruins of the Abbey of St. Pierre-les-Dames.
Of this celebrated Abbey, where several royal persons stayed: Mary Stuart twice, in her childhood and after she was widowed; Henry IV., on a visit to his cousin, the Abbess Renée II.; Anne of Austria, of whom the Congrégation library contains a portrait; there remains hardly anything but two 16th century pavillons belonging to the period when Renée de Lorraine, sister of the Queen of Scotland and aunt of Mary Stuart, was abbess of the convent. Built of stone and brick with marble incrustations, and adorned with beautiful carvings, these pavillons were pure Renaissance in style. The head of an angel with unfolded wings and the head of a grinning demon surmounted the two windows of one of the ground-floors. On the first floor of the same pavillon the window, framed with delicate ornaments, opened above a cornice, the principal sculptural subject of which was a nude woman, helmeted, suckling two children.