CHAPTER XXI.NO.8 RUELLE ST.

JACOB.
Between the Rue de Lille and the Boulevard St.Germain, in the narrow streets which to this day have survived the sweeping influence of Baron Haussmann, once Prefect of the Seine, there are many houses which scarcely seem to have opened door or window since the great Revolution.
One of these, to be precise, is situated in the Ruelle St.Jacob, hardly wider than a lane--a short street with a blind end against high walls--into which any vehicle that enters must needs do so with the knowledge of having to back out again.

For there is no room to turn.
Which is an allegory.

All the windows, in fact, that look forlornly at the blank walls or peep over the high gateways into the Ruelle St.Jacob are Royalist windows looking into a street which is blinded by a high wall and is too narrow to allow of turning.
Many of the windows would appear to have gathered dust since those days more than a hundred years ago when white faces peeped from them and trembling hands unbarred the sash to listen to the roar of voices in the Rue du Bac, in the open space by the church of St.Germain des Pres, in the Cite, all over Paris, where the people were making history.
To this house in the Ruelle St.Jacob, Dormer Colville and Loo Barebone made their way on foot, on their arrival in Paris at the termination of their long journey.
It was nearly dark, for Colville had arranged to approach the city and leave their horses at a stable at Meudon after dusk.
"It is foolish," he said, gaily, to his companion, "to flaunt a face like yours in Paris by daylight." They had driven from Meudon in a hired carriage to the corner of the Champ de Mars, in those days still innocent of glass houses and exhibition buildings, for Paris was not yet the toy-shop of the world; and from the Champ de Mars they came on foot through the ill-paved, feebly lighted streets.

In the Ruelle St.Jacob itself there was only one lamp, burning oil, swinging at the corner.