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CHAPTER VIII
POST CORDA LAPIDES
After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove
unprofitable to point out, in a few words, its material con-
figuration. The reader already has some idea of it.
The convent of the Petit-Picpus-Sainte-Antoine filled al-
most the whole of the vast trapezium which resulted from
the intersection of the Rue Polonceau, the Rue Droit-Mur,
the Rue Petit-Picpus, and the unused lane, called Rue Au-
marais on old plans. These four streets surrounded this
trapezium like a moat. The convent was composed of several
buildings and a garden. The principal building, taken in its
entirety, was a juxtaposition of hybrid constructions which,
viewed from a bird’s-eye view, outlined, with considerable
exactness, a gibbet laid flat on the ground. The main arm
of the gibbet occupied the whole of the fragment of the Rue
Droit-Mur comprised between the Rue Petit-Picpus and
the Rue Polonceau; the lesser arm was a lofty, gray, severe
grated facade which faced the Rue Petit-Picpus; the carriage
entrance No. 62 marked its extremity. Towards the centre of
this facade was a low, arched door, whitened with dust and
ashes, where the spiders wove their webs, and which was