of the Falcon which
formerly stood on this spot, Tasso in the splendour of his early years
was lodged by his patron, the Cardinal d'Este, and composed the greater
part of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. The Rue Francois Miron is continued
by the Rue St. Antoine: at No. 119, we enter the Passage Charlemagne and
pass to the second courtyard where remains a goodly portion of the old
Hotel of the Royal Provost of Paris,[226] given to Aubriot by Charles V.
At No. 101 is the site of one of the gates of the Philip Augustus wall
and at No. 99 stands the Jesuit Church of St. Paul and St. Louis, in the
typical baroque style so familiar to visitors to Rome. The once lavishly
decorated interior has suffered much from the Revolutionists. Germain
Pilon's Virgin still remains in the chapel L. of the high altar, but the
four angels in silver that sustained the hearts of Louis XIII. and XIV.,
and the noble bronze statues from the mausoleum of the Princes of Conde,
admired by Bernini, are only a memory. At No. 65, a malodorous court
leads to the old vaulted entrance to the charnel-houses of St. Paul,
where Rabelais and the Man with the Iron Mask were buried;[227] and to
the R. of this vault a narrow street leads to the Marche Ste. Catherine
on the site of the canons' houses of the monastery of Ste. Catherine du
Val des Ecoliers (p. 124). At the corner of the Rue du Petit Musc is the
magnificent Hotel de Mayenne, begun by Du Cerceau for Diana of Poitiers
and completed for the Duke of Mayenne, leader of the forces of the
League: this too has a fine courtyard. The chamber in which the leaders
of the League met and decided to assassinate Henry III. still exists. An
inscription over No. 5 marks the site of the forecourt of the Bastille
where the revolutionists penetrated on 14th July: on the pavement in
front of No. 1 and across the end of the street and in front of No. 5
Place de la Bastille, round the opposite corner, lines of white stones
mark part of the huge space on which the gloomy and sinister old
fortress stood. We turn S.W. by the Boulevard Henry IV., past the
imposing new barracks of the Garde Republicaine, and then L. by the Rue
de Sully. At No. 3 we enter the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, one of the
most important libraries of Paris, where an attendant will show Sully's
private cabinet and antechamber, with the rich decorations as they were
left by his successor, including a ceiling painted by Vouet. Many an
intimate outpouring of the Vi