134 THE ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE MIDDLE AGEScould easily find work with the numerous master masons residing in
that quarter, notably on rue de la Mortellerie (later the rue de l'Hotel
de Ville), which earned its name from the many mortar-maker work-
shops located along its length.
Rue de la Mortellerie was cited under this name as early as 1212 in
the act establishing the parish district of Saint Jean en Greve,^48 which
serves as proof that during the time of the Templars it was already inhab-
ited by numerous masons. In 1348 of the following century, a certain
Richard "the mortellier" [mortar maker], who lived on this street, estab-
lished the seat for a society of masons in his house. The Office of the
Master Masons remained fixed there for centuries, until the French
Revolution. In 1787 the building also housed the offices of the carpen-
ters, joiners, cabinetmakers, miniature furniture makers, and turners.
This house stood there until the nineteenth century, when it was removed
to accommodate the expansion of the Hotel de Ville. Close by it, also on
the rue de la Mortellerie at the current location of the garden of the Maire
de Paris, stood the so-called chapel of the Haudriettes, which the society
of masons and carpenters bought from the Sisters of the Assumption on
December 22, 1764, in order to install the confederation of Saint Louis
and Saint Blaise there after it was transferred from the rue Saint Jacques.^49
Other streets in this quarter that formed part of the Templars' cen-
sive district also evoke the presence of builders: the rue du Platre or
Plastriere, or the rue du Jean de Saint Paul, still in existence today. A
plaster works once existed there and numerous plasterers had estab-
lished homes along its length.^50 Another rue Plastriere or Lingariere,
which should not be confused with the first one mentioned, ran from
the rue Beaubourg to the rue Saint Martin.
There are many other pieces of evidence of the affection that
masons have always felt for the old Templar quarter of Saint Gervais
and the Greve. There are stalls dating from the sixteenth century in the
choir of Saint Gervais Church that depict images of the quarter's cor-
porations sculpted on the misericordes: bargemen, wine merchants,
cobblers, meat roasters, masons, and stonecutters.*
* For more on the stalls of Saint Gervais, see the reports of L. Lambeau and Abbe
Gauthier (with photographs): Proces-verbaux de la Commission du Vieux Paris (190l),
104-5 and 159-60.