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the other side of the Rue Polonceau for its sole perspective
and neighborhood, and he will be able to form for himself a
complete image of what the house of the Bernardines of the
Petit-Picpus was forty years ago. This holy house had been
built on the precise site of a famous tennis-ground of the
fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the
‘tennis-ground of the eleven thousand devils.’
All these streets, moreover, were more ancient than
Paris. These names, Droit-Mur and Aumarais, are very
ancient; the streets which bear them are very much more
ancient still. Aumarais Lane was called Maugout Lane; the
Rue Droit-Mur was called the Rue des Eglantiers, for God
opened flowers before man cut stones.