7. Most probably the palace of the baths (Thermarum ), of
which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in the rue de la
Harpe . The buildings covered a considerable space of the
modern quarter of the university; and the gardens, under the
Merovingian kings, communicated with the abbey of St.
Germain des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans
this ancient palace was reduced in the twelfth century to a
maze of ruins, whose dark recesses were the scene of
licentious love.
Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis
Multiplici latebra scelerum tersura ruborem.
___pereuntis saepe pudoris
Celatura nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis .
(These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8,
a poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk
of St. Alban's, about the year 1190. See Warton's History of
English Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such thefts
might be less pernicious to mankind than the theological
disputes of the Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on
the same ground. Bonamy, Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xv. p.
678-682.