re, of such travellers as go to the
French capital with their eyes in their pockets, and of such as stay
at home and travel by their fireside, but still can relish the
recollections and associations of olden times, we are going to rake
together some of the many odd notes that pertain to the history of
this street and its immediate vicinity.

The readiest way into the Rue St Denis from the Isle de la Cite, the
centre of Paris, has always been over the Pont-au-Change. This bridge,
now the widest over the Seine, was once a narrow, ill-contrived
structure of wood, covered with a row of houses on either side, that
formed a dark and dirty street, so that you might pass through it a
hundred times without once suspecting that you were crossing a river.
These houses, built of stone and wood, overhung the edges of the
bridge, and afforded their inhabitants an unsafe abode between the sky
and the water. At times the river would rise in one of its periodical
furies, and sweep away a pier or two with the superincumbent houses;
at others the wooden supporters of the structure would catch fire by
some untoward event, and the inhabitants had the choice of being fried
or drowned, along with their penates and their supellectile property.
Such a catastrophe happened in the reign of Louis XIII., when this and
another wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough, close by its side, were
set on fire by a squib, which some _gamins de Paris_ were letting off
on his Majesty's highway; and in less than three hours 140 houses had
disappeared. It was Louis VII., in the twelfth century, who gave it
the name it has since borne; for he ordered all the money-changers of
Paris to come and live on this bridge--no very secure place for
keeping the precious metals; and about two hundred years ago the
money-changers, fifty-four in number, occupied the houses on one side,
while fifty goldsmiths lived in those on the other. In the open
roadway between, was held a kind of market or fair for bird-sellers,
who were allowed to keep their standings on the curious tenure of
letting off two hundred dozens of small birds whenever a new king
should pass over this bridge, on his solemn entry into the capital.
The birds fluttered and whistled on these occasions, the _gamins_
clapped their hands and shouted, the good citizens cried "Noel!" and
"Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers were delighted at the joyous
spectacle. Whether the birds flew away ready roasted to the royal
table,