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After the fall of Camulogene, Gaul soon returned to the Roman yoke and Paris subsequently became the residence of their prefects, governors and even emperors. In 1818, in digging deeply in the streets of Monceau and Martroi, near the church of Saint Gervais, an ancient cemetery was discovered.
We knew that the Place du Martroi was not the scene of Joan's martyrdom, and yet this wide, noble square, with her monument in the centre, from which diverge so many streets associated with her history, stood for infinitely more to us than anything we had seen at Rouen, the actual place of her martyrdom.
Having only ourselves to dispose of, we soon found an omnibus which conveyed us to the Place du Martroi, the soul and centre of the ancient city of Orleans, where is fitly placed an equestrian statue of Jeanne d'Arc, by Foyatier.
The conduct of the two accomplices was characteristic; Lucien de Rubempre shrank back to avoid the gaze of the passers-by, who looked at the grated window of the gloomy and fateful vehicle on its road along the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Rue du Martroi to reach the quay and the Arch of Saint-Jean, the way, at that time, across the Place de l'Hotel de Ville.
This latter mansion, with its small towers and richly ornamented façade, is now an historical museum and is better known as the Hôtel Cabu. By the Rue Royale, which suddenly changes its name and becomes the Rue de la Republique after it crosses the Place du Martroi, we made our way to the Hôtel du Ville, a handsome sixteenth century building of brick and stone.
If a cab should be coming through from the Place de Greve while a costermonger-woman was pushing her little truck of apples in from the Rue du Martroi, a third vehicle of any kind produced difficulties. The foot-passengers fled in alarm, seeking a corner-stone to protect them from the old-fashioned axles, which had attained such prominence that a law was passed at last to reduce their length.
The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and most tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round the little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi, exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down.
"He is right," thought the furrier. "I had better not know more"; and he went at once in search of the king's surgeon, who lived at a hostelry in the place du Martroi. Catherine de' Medici was at this moment in a political extremity very much like that in which poor Christophe had seen her at Blois.
The post-boy was still exchanging amenities with Asie, and vehicles were collecting in the Rue du Martroi. "Look out, there Pecaire fermati. Souni la Vedrem," shrieked old Asie, with the Red-Indian intonations peculiar to these female costermongers, who disfigure their words in such a way that they are transformed into a sort onomatopoeia incomprehensible to any but Parisians.
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