Back then, rue Vaneau was only about half the length that it is today.
You have to imagine the street cobblestoned, naturally not tarmacked.
There were no gas lights here.
Ruge said there was no gas lighting, and that it was rather dark.
"We crossed the whole of the Faubourg St Germain
from the Jardin des Plantes,
where the railway line from Orleans comes in,
to the quieter environment of Les Invalides where we live.
The left bank of the Seine where this district lies
has an academic, unsatisfactory, antiquated character.
The area where the workers live is dreadfully neglected,
gas lighting has only recently been introduced even around the Pantheon
and the palaces and gardens of the old aristocracy are bleak
and dead as a graveyard."