The chimneys
of the houses in it are below your feet. Opposite to the lowest flight
of steps, there is a large old mansion facing you, with a spacious walled
garden behind--and to the right of it. In front of this garden, on the
same side as the mansion, and with great boughs of trees sweeping over
their lowly roofs, is a row of small, picturesque, old-fashioned
cottages, not unlike, in degree and uniformity, to the almshouses so
often seen in an English country town. The Rue d'Isabelle looks as
though it had been untouched by the innovations of the builder for the
last three centuries; and yet any one might drop a stone into it from the
back windows of the grand modern hotels in the Rue Royale, built and
furnished in the newest Parisian fashion.
In the thirteenth century, the Rue d'Isabelle was called the Fosse-aux-
Chiens; and the kennels for the ducal hounds occupied the place where
Madame Heger's pensionnat now stands. A hospital (in the ancient large
meaning of the word) succeeded to the kennel. The houseless and the
poor, perhaps the leprous, were received, by the brethren of a religious
order, in a building on this sheltered site; and what had been a fosse
for defence, was filled up with herb-gardens and orchards for upwards of
a hundred years. Then came the aristocratic guild of the cross-bow
men--that company the members whereof were required to prove their noble
descent--untainted for so many generations, before they could be admitted
into the guild; and, being admitted, were required to swear a solemn
oath, that no other pastime or exercise should take up any part of their
leisure, the whole of which was to be devoted to the practice of the
noble art of shooting with the cross-bow.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285