Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff

ROUND ABOUT THE CARREFOUR DE LA CROIX-ROUGE Passing to the western half of the arrondissement, we turn into the modern Rue de Rennes, running south from Place St-Germain-des-Prés along the lines of razed convent buildings or their vanished gardens. The short Rue Gozlin opening out of it dates from the thirteenth century, its present name recording that of a bishop of Paris who defended the city against invading Normans in the ninth century. Two only of the houses we see there now are ancient, Nos. 1 and 5. At No. 50 we see the seventeenth-century entrance of the old Cour du Dragon, with its balcony and huge piece of sculpture dating from 1735; the quaint houses of the alley, with its gutter in the middle, were in past days the habitation of ironmongers. It leads down into the old Rue du Dragon, which began as Rue du Sépulcre, being then the property of the monks of St-Sépulcre. A fine _hôtel_ stood once at either end. At No. 76 we see the remains of a mansion, taken later for a convent, where Bossuet sojourned. Nos. 147-127 are on the site of a Roman cemetery. Rue Cherche-Midi, once Chasse-Midi, takes its name from an ancient sign-board illustrating the old French proverb: “Chercher midi à quatorze heures,” i.e. to look for something wide of the mark. Many old-time houses still stand along its course. It starts from the Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, where, before a cross in the centre of the Carrefour, criminals and political offenders were put to death. The name is probably due to a sign-board rather than to the alleged colour of this cross. In this quiet spot, as historians have remarked, a flaring red cross would hardly have been in keeping with the temper of its patrician inhabitants. The Revolutionists called it Carrefour du Bonnet-Rouge. At No. 12 we see a fine _grille_. One of the most interesting historically inhabited _hôtels_ of the city stood till 1907 on the site of No. 37, in olden times the dependency of a convent, latterly hôtel des Conseils-de-Guerre, razed to make way for the brand-new boulevard Raspail. The military prison opposite is on the site of a convent organized in the house of an exiled Calvinist, razed in