IN THE VICINITY OF PLACE ST-MICHEL
An ancient _place_ and part of the old Rue de l’Hirondelle, and an
ancient chapel stretched in bygone days where now we see the broad new
Place St-Michel. The colossal fountain we see there was put up in 1860,
replacing a seventeenth-century fountain on the ancient _place_, which
lay a little more to the south. Of the boulevard--the famous “Boule
Miche”--we will speak later (_see_ p. 306).
Turning into Rue de l’Hirondelle, in the twelfth century Rue
l’Arondale-en-Laac, then Rue Herondalle, we see remains of the ancient
Collège d’Antin, founded in 1371, and an eighteenth-century house on the
site of the mansion of the bishop of Chartres previously there. Rue
Gît-le-Cœur, probably indicated in fourteenth-century days the
dwelling-place of the King’s cook ... _Gille_ his name; _cœur_, a
misspelling for _queux_, cook. At No. 5 we see remains of hôtel Séguier.
Rue Séguier was a thoroughfare, a country road in Childebert’s time; in
the fourteenth century it became a street with the name
Pavée-St-André-des-Arts. Every house has some interesting feature. The
famous Hostellerie St-François till the eighteenth century on the site
of No. 3, was the starting-point of the coaches for Normandy and
Brittany. At No. 6 we see traces of the hôtel de Nemours. The Frères
Cordonniers de St-Crépin, founded in 1645 (Shoemakers’ Confraternity),
had its quarters where we see the Nos. 9, 11, 13. J. de Ste-Beuve, the
Jansenist, was born and in 1677 died at No. 17. At No. 18 we see all
that is left of a fourteenth-century hôtel de Nevers on the site of an
older _hôtel_. The burial-ground of the church St-André stretched along
part of Rue Suger: the presbytery was on the site of No. 13. Every house
in this narrow old street tells of past days. At No. 3 we find traces of
the chapel of the Collège de Boissy, founded in 1360 by a Canon of
Chartres for seven poor students. Another old-time college stood in Rue
de l’Éperon and till 1907, an ancient house, a dependency of the church
St-André-des-Arts. Rue Serpente, a winding road in its earliest days, a
street about the year 1200, was the site of the celebrated hôtel
Serpente, and of the firm of printers where Tallien was an employé. The
very modern Rue Danton, with its emphatically up-to-date structure in
re-enforced concrete, has swept away a host of ancient houses. The hôtel
des Sociétés Savantes is on the site of the hôtel de Thou, l’hôtel des
États-de-Blois in the time of Louis XV.
Rue Mignon, twelfth century, recalls yet another college founded in 1343
by a dignitary of Chartres of this name; ancient houses at Nos. 1 and 5.
The most interesting of these old streets is Rue Hautefeuille with its
two turrets, one at No. 5, the ancient _hôtel_ of the Abbots of Fécamp,
fourteenth century, the other octagonal, at No. 21, on the corner of
what was once part of the Collège Damville of the same date: there in
Roman times stood the castle Altum Folium--Hautefeuille--of which
remains were found in the fourteenth century. This old street was no
doubt a road leading to the citadel.
[Illustration: RUE HAUTEFEUILLE]