To left and right are two of the most interesting churches in Paris—St. Julien le Pauvre, where the University held its first sittings, and St. Séverin, built on the site of the oratory of Childebert I., where St. Cloud was shorn and took his vows. Both churches were destroyed by the Normans. The former was rebuilt in the twelfth century, the latter from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. The portal of St. Séverin has been, as we have already mentioned, transferred from the thirteenth-century church of St. Pierre aux Bœufs, in the Cité. Two small lions in relief, between which the curés of the church in olden times are said to have exercised justice, have been replaced on either side of the north door of the tower. This beautiful Gothic temple, with its magnificent stained glass, was used during the Revolution as a powder magazine. Hard by, in the picturesque old Rue de la Parchmenerie, two houses, Nos. 6 and 7, were once the property of the canons of Norwich Cathedral, who maintained a number of scholars there. Turning out of this street, the Rue Boutebrie, was in olden times the Rue des Enlumineurs (illuminators), famous for those who practised the art “che alluminare chiamato è in Parisi.” A street (Rue Dante), which bears the name of the great poet, from whom this line is taken, leads to the Rue du Fouarre (Straw Street), in one of whose colleges the author of the Divina Commedia probably sat as scholar. The houses are all modernised, and the name alone remains. Southwards again, the Rue des Anglais reminds us that there the English scholars lived; and to the east is the Place Maubert, of dread memories, for there were burnt many a Protestant martyr, and the famous printer-philosopher, Etienne Dolet, whose statue in bronze stands on the Place. Yet further south, near the site of the old Carmelite monastery in the Rue des Carmes, stood, at No. 15, the Italian College (Collége des Lombards). Much of this “hostel of the poor Italian scholars of the charity of Our Lady,” as rebuilt in 1681 by the efforts of two Irish priests, Michael Kelly and Patrick Moggin, still remains, including the chapel, and is occupied by a Catholic Workmen’s Club. It formerly gave shelter to forty Irish missionary priests and an equal number of poor Irish scholars. Some idea of the vast extent of the ancient foundation will be gained by walking round to the Rue de la Montagne, where the principal portal may be seen. If we turn westwards by the Rue des Ecoles, we shall pass the famous Collége de France, and soon reach the Hôtel de Cluny, and the remains of the Roman palace and baths. The ruins and ground were purchased by the Abbots of Cluny in 1340, and the present beautiful late Gothic mansion was completed for them in 1490. It was often let by the abbots, and was occupied by James V. of Scotland when he came to Paris in 1536 to celebrate his marriage with Magdalen, daughter of Francis I. In the frigidarium of the baths are the remains of the altar to Jupiter found under Notre Dame, a statue of the Emperor Julian, and many a relic of Roman Paris.
The abbots’ delightful old mansion is filled with a rich collection of mediæval statues, altar paintings, wood carvings, ivories, reliquaries, stained glass, tapestries (among them the Lady and Unicorn series, the finest ever wrought), embroideries and textile fabrics, enamels and goldsmiths’ work—all of wondrous beauty and interest. The rooms themselves, with their fine Renaissance chimney-pieces, where on winter days wood fires, fragrant and genial, burn, are not the least charming part of the museum. Many of the objects (about 11,000) exhibited are uncatalogued, and the old catalogue, long out of date, might well be classed among the antiquities.
South of the Cluny are the vast buildings of the new Sorbonne, the modern University of Paris, where some 12,000 students are gratuitously taught. The vestibule, grand staircase and amphitheatre are of noble and impressive architecture, and adorned with mural paintings, among which Puvis de Chavannes’ great decorative composition in the amphitheatre is of chiefest interest. The paintings of the vestibule illustrate scenes in the history of the University of Paris. Of Richelieu’s Sorbonne, the chapel alone exists to-day: all the remainder has been swept away, together with the north cloister and church of St. Benoist, where François Villon assassinated his rival Chermoyé.