Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff

Cléry was till 1634 an ancient roadway. Madame de Pompadour was born here. Pierre Corneille and Casanava, the painter, lived here; and, where the street meets Rue Beauregard, Baron Batz made his frantic attempt to save Louis XVI on his way to the scaffold. No. 97, now a humble shop with the sign “Au poète de 1793,” was the home of André Chenier. Nos. 21-19 belonged to Robert Poquelin, the priest-brother of Molière, later to Pierre Lebrun, where in pre-Revolution days theatrical performances were given, and the Mass said secretly during the Terror. Leading out of Rue Cléry, we find Rue des Degrés, six mètres in length, the smallest street in Paris, a mere flight of steps. Rue St-Sauveur (thirteenth century) memorizes the church once there. From end to end we see ancient houses, fine old balconies, curious signs, architectural features of interest. In Rue des Petits-Carreaux, running on from this end of Rue Montorgueil (_see_ p. 40) we see at No. 16 the house where, till recent days, musicians assembled for hire each Sunday. Now they meet at the Café de la Chartreuse, 24, Boulevard St-Denis. In a house in a court where the house No. 26 now stands, lived Jean Dubarry. Rue Poissonnière, “Fishwives Street,” once “Champ des Femmes” (thirteenth century), shows us many ancient houses. Rue Beauregard was so named in honour of the fine view Parisians had of old after mounting Rue Montorgueil. The notorious sorceress, Catherine Monvoisin--“la Voisin”--implicated in a thousand crimes, built for herself a luxurious habitation on this eminence--somewhat higher in those days than in later years. We find several ancient houses along this old street, notably No. 46. We see ancient houses also in Rue de la Lune (1630). No. 1 is a shop still famed for its _brioches du soleil_. Between these two streets stretched in olden days the graveyard of Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle, a church built in 1624 on the site of the ancient chapel Ste-Barbe. The name is said to refer to a piece of good news told to Anne d’Autriche one day as she passed that way. The tower only of the seventeenth-century church remains; the rest was rebuilt in