Googling Shit to Death, Round #239890
So apparently when I hit up the Rue du Champ de l'Alouette in Paris, I had the wrong street--right general vicinity, but the old Rue du Champ de l'Alouette goes by rue Corvisart these days. Since the two are very close together, I wouldn't ordinarily care that much except I was looking for some remnant of a field when I visited and the rue Corvisart would've been one more place to look.
I figured this out by comparing a map of the modern area to my giant unwieldy PDF of 1839 Paris, where it can be found by zooming in to 400% and looking a bit to the left of the Barrière d'Italie.
Further inspection of the two reveals a Hôpital Broca very near to the site of the former Field of the Lark, which is actually also there in the 1839 version under the name of Hôpital de Lourcine. Intrigued by the presence of a hospital right next to a LM plot point, I whipped out my trusty Google-fu and discovered that the building is a former convent, claimed by the state in 1790 and allowed to fall into disrepair until it was converted in 1832 into a home for cholera orphans. It didn't pick up the Hôpital de Lourcine name until two years later, when it was made into a hospital for women with venereal diseases. (Wiki adds that from 1825 to 1832 it was a "maison de refuge et travail," which I assume is a poorhouse.)
Not that any of this has any real usefulness, except as something to file away in case I actually write something and need an excuse for somebody to bump into Marius while he's off at the Field of the Lark pining for Cosette. But Google is awesome.
I figured this out by comparing a map of the modern area to my giant unwieldy PDF of 1839 Paris, where it can be found by zooming in to 400% and looking a bit to the left of the Barrière d'Italie.
Further inspection of the two reveals a Hôpital Broca very near to the site of the former Field of the Lark, which is actually also there in the 1839 version under the name of Hôpital de Lourcine. Intrigued by the presence of a hospital right next to a LM plot point, I whipped out my trusty Google-fu and discovered that the building is a former convent, claimed by the state in 1790 and allowed to fall into disrepair until it was converted in 1832 into a home for cholera orphans. It didn't pick up the Hôpital de Lourcine name until two years later, when it was made into a hospital for women with venereal diseases. (Wiki adds that from 1825 to 1832 it was a "maison de refuge et travail," which I assume is a poorhouse.)
Not that any of this has any real usefulness, except as something to file away in case I actually write something and need an excuse for somebody to bump into Marius while he's off at the Field of the Lark pining for Cosette. But Google is awesome.