AN interesting corner of Old Paris lies on the north-east side of the OdÉon. Rue Racine, opening on the place before the theatre, runs through the ancient territory of the Cordeliers. Vestiges of a Roman cemetery were found in recent years beneath the soil at No. 28, and at No. 11 were unearthed traces of the city wall of Philippe-Auguste. George Sand lived for a time at No. 3. Rue de l’École de MÉdecine was once in part Rue des Cordeliers, in part Rue des Boucheries-St-Germain, a name telling its own tale. No less than twenty-two butchers’ shops flourished here. At the outbreak of the Revolution a butcher was president of the famous club des Cordeliers established in the ancient convent chapel (1791-94). The refectory, the church-like structure we see at No. 15, now an anatomy museum, built by Anne of Bretagne in the fifteenth century, is all that remains of the convent buildings dating in part from the early years of the twelfth century, which covered a great part of this district from the days of Louis IX. Many of these buildings were put to secular uses before the outbreak of the Revolution. The cloister stood till 1877, made into a prison, then was razed to make room for the École de MÉdecine built in part with the ancient cloister stones. The chapel stood on what is now Place de l’École-de-MÉdecine. The amphitheatre of the |