acquired by Cardinal Richelieu, who devoted his extraordinary talents in a degree to the interests of his country, but more especially to the gratification of his vanity, and the promotion of his ambitious projects; descending to the extremes of injustice, dissimulation, and cruelty, to accomplish his object, he became the persecutor of Mary, who had raised him from comparative obscurity, and caused her exile, in which she died in poverty, which she certainly merited by her misconduct, but not by the instigation of her protege Richelieu.  But with all his sins, he effected much good; he founded the Royal Printing establishment, the French Academy, also the Garden of Plants; he built the Palais-Royal and rebuilt the Church and College of the Sorbonne.  In this reign more religious establishments were founded than in any preceding, amongst which were the Convent of the Carmes Dechausses, No. 70, Rue de Vaugirard, the monks of which possessed a secret for making a particular kind of liquid which is called Eau des Carmes, and is still in demand; the church and building belonging to the establishment are now standing, and were recently occupied by nuns.  The Convent of Jacobins between the Rues du Bac and St-Dominique, with its Church, which still remains and is called St-Thomas d’Aquin, is well worth notice, and the monastery is now occupied by the armoury which is one of the most interesting sights of Paris.  The Benedictines Anglaises, No. 269, Rue St-Jacques, was formerly occupied by English monks, who fled their country on account of some persecution in the reign of Henry VIII.

In 1674, Father Joseph Shirburne, the prior of monastery, pulled down the old building, and erected another in its place more commodious, also a church attached to it in which James the Second of England was buried, as also his daughter Mary Stuart.  It has now become the property of an individual, and is at present occupied as a factory of cotton.  The Oratoire in the Rue Saint-Honore, since devoted to protestant worship, was built in the year 1621 by M. de Berulle, since Cardinal, on the site of the Hotel du Bouchage, once the residence of Gabrielle d’Estrees, the favourite mistress of Henry IV.  The Convent of the Capucins, situated in the Place des Capucins, at present an Hospital. Seminaire des Oratoriens, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques, 254, now occupied by the Deaf and Dumb. College des Jesuites, at present College of Louis-le-Grand.  Convent of Petits-Peres:  the church of which still remains and is situated at the corner of the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.  The Monk Fiacre, called a Saint, was buried in this church; thinking that his sanctity was a preservative against evil, they stuck his portrait on all the hackney coaches, which was the cause of their ever after being called Fiacre.