orth a visit.
The sumptuous chambers contain much characteristic and well-preserved
decorative work by Boucher, Natoire, Carle Vanloo and others.[231]
Opposite the hotel and between Nos. 59 and 57 may be seen a portion
of a tower, repaired in brick, of the old Philip Augustus wall, and in
the courtyard of the Mont de Piete (No. 55) the line of the wall is
traced: a nearer view of the tower may be obtained from the courtyard
to the R.

[Footnote 231: At the north end of the Rue des Archives is the site,
now a square and a market, of the grisly old fortress of the Knights
Templars, whose walls and towers and round church were still standing
a century ago. The enclosure was a famous place of refuge for
insolvent debtors and political offenders, and sheltered Rousseau in
1765 when a _lettre de cachet_ was issued for his arrest. In the
gloomy keep, which was not destroyed until 1811, were imprisoned the
royal family of France after the abandonment of the Tuileries on 10th
August 1792. The old market of the Temple, the centre of the _petites
industries_ of Paris, has been recently demolished. West of this is
the huge Museum of the Arts and Crafts (Conservatoire des Arts et
Metiers), on the site of the abbatial buildings and lands of St.
Martin of the Fields, still preserving in its structure the beautiful
thirteenth-century church and refectory of the Abbey.]

[Illustration: CLOISTER OF THE BILLETTES, FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]

[Illustration: ARCHIVES NATIONALES, HOTEL SOUBISE, SHOWING TOWERS OF
HOTEL DE CLISSON.]

[Illustration: TOWER AT THE CORNER OF THE RUE VIELLE DU TEMPLE.]

We proceed eastward past the rebuilt church of the Blancs Manteaux and
at the corner of the Rue Vieille du Temple find a charming Gothic
tourelle (restored), all that remains of the mansion built in 1528 by
Jean de la Balue. Descending the Rue Vieille du Temple to the R., we
may examine (No. 47) the old Hotel de Hollande, erected in 1638, where
the Dutch ambassadors resided; and ascending, at No. 87, we find the
Hotel de Rohan (1712), home of the Cardinal de Rohan of
diamond-necklace fame, now the Imprimerie Nationale. The Salon des
Singes, charmingly decorated by Huet, and other interesting rooms are
shown. The fine relief by Le Lorrain of the Horses of Apollo in a
passage to the R. of the courtyard should by no means be missed. We
return to the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, and at No. 38 find an
inscription[232] over the entrance to a picturesque court