Here, too, in a blind alley opening off the Rue St.Jacques, yet stands part of that Carmelite Convent in which, for thirty years, Madame de la Valliere expiated the solitary frailty of her life.

And so at every turn! Not a gloomy by-street, not a dilapidated fountain, not a grim old college facade but had its history, or its legend.

Here the voice of Abelard thundered new truths, and Rabelais jested, and Petrarch discoursed with the doctors.

Here, in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, walked the shades of Racine, of Moliere, of Corneille, of Voltaire.

Dear, venerable, immortal old Quartier Latin! Thy streets were narrow, but they were the arteries through which, century after century, circulated all the wisdom and poetry, all the art, and science, and learning of France! Their gloom, their squalor, their very dirt was sacred.