L’ODÉON
An interesting corner of Old Paris lies on the north-east side of the
Odéon. Rue Racine, opening on the _place_ before the theatre, runs
through the ancient territory of the Cordeliers. Vestiges of a Roman
cemetery were found in recent years beneath the soil at No. 28, and at
No. 11 were unearthed traces of the city wall of Philippe-Auguste.
George Sand lived for a time at No. 3. Rue de l’École de Médecine was
once in part Rue des Cordeliers, in part Rue des Boucheries-St-Germain,
a name telling its own tale. No less than twenty-two butchers’ shops
flourished here. At the outbreak of the Revolution a butcher was
president of the famous club des Cordeliers established in the ancient
convent chapel (1791-94). The refectory, the church-like structure we
see at No. 15, now an anatomy museum, built by Anne of Bretagne in the
fifteenth century, is all that remains of the convent buildings dating
in part from the early years of the twelfth century, which covered a
great part of this district from the days of Louis IX. Many of these
buildings were put to secular uses before the outbreak of the
Revolution. The cloister stood till 1877, made into a prison, then was
razed to make room for the École de Médecine built in part with the
ancient cloister stones. The chapel stood on what is now Place de
l’École-de-Médecine. The amphitheatre of the School of Surgery at No.
5, an association founded by St. Louis, dates from the end of the
seventeenth century on the site of an older structure. Above the cellars
at No. 4 stood in olden days the College of Damville. The Faculté de
Médecine at No. 12 is on the site of the Collège-Royal de Bourgogne,
founded in 1331. The first stone of the present building was laid by
Louis XVI. The edifice was enlarged in later days, restored in 1900. The
bas-relief on its frontal, sculptured as a figure of Louis XV, was by
order of the Commune transformed in 1793 into the woman draped we see
there now. Skulls of famous persons, some noted criminals, may be seen
at the Museum. Marat lived and died in Rue des Cordeliers. There
Charlotte Corday was seized by the enraged mob. Traces of the ancient
convent may be seen in the short Rue Antoine-Dubois. Rue Dupuytren lies
across what was the convent graveyard. Nos. 7-9 were dependencies of the
old convent. No. 7 was later a free school of drawing directed by Rosa
Bonheur. Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, so named in 1806, because of the
vicinity of the hôtel du Prince de Condé, was in olden days Chemin des
Fossés. We see there many characteristic houses. Auguste Comte died at
No. 10 in 1857.