The Rue des Carmes has an interesting appearance as containing some of the old colleges, now otherwise appropriated.  One was the College de Lisieux; the buildings remain with a curious chapel, which fronts the Marche des Carmes, but its entrance is at No. 5, Rue St. Jean-de-Beauvais.  In the Market there is a fountain in the middle built in 1818; this Market is now designated la Place Maubert, and occupies the site of the Convent des Carmes.  Mounting a few steps in the Rue St. Victor, we arrive at the church of St. Nicholas-du-Chardonnet; the body of the building was completed in 1709, but the lower is of the 16th century.  The general effect of the interior is fine, but the paintings in different chapels, on either side, are highly interesting; some of them are extremely good, of the schools of Lesueur, Moise Valentin, and Mignard, the ceiling of the chapel of St. Charles is painted by Lebrun; there is also a monument of himself and his mother.  At No. 68, Rue St-Victor is the Royal Institution for the juvenile Blind, founded by M. Hauey in 1791.  There are here maintained 60 boys and 30 girls, at the expense of the State, and as boarders, any blind children may be admitted, either French or foreign; they are taught reading, music, arithmetic, and writing, by means of characters raised in relief.  Admittance is freely accorded to strangers, but the establishment is about to be removed to the corner of the Rue de Sevres, on the Boulevard des Invalides, where 250 pupils will be accommodated.  At No. 18, Rue de Pontoise, is the seminary of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, and at No. 76, the ancient College of Cardinal Lemoine, founded in 1300; some parts of the original building exist, and on the doors are still seen a cardinal’s hat and arms, and numerous iron spear-heads.  Close by, in the Marche aux Veaux, is still one of the dormitories of the Convent of the Bernardins, which must be of the 13th century, as also some remains of their chapel, in a house adjoining the Market.  On the Quai de la Tournelle, No. 35, is the Hotel de Nesmond, of the reign of Henry IV, and at No. 5, the Pharmacie Centrale, for keeping all the drugs and chemical preparations for the hospitals of Paris.

The Rue de Fouarre, by which we will pass, is one of the meanest and filthiest in Paris, but has been cited by Petrarch, Dante and Rabelais, as in it were several of the schools where public disputations were held; the Rue Galande, the Rue des Rats, and many other dirty streets of the same description is the quarter where existed the old University, and still known by the name of the Quartier Latin.