Around the corner, in the Rue de la Bûcherie, stands the well-known English-language bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, established in 1951.

It is the work of the French sculptor, Georges Jeanclos (1933–1997), and it is emblematic of the legend of St. Julien the Hospitaller, a tale, now largely discounted, involving a curse by witches, a talking deer, a case of mistaken identity, a horrific crime, several improbable coincidences, and a supernatural intervention.

Before 1909, this plot was occupied by one of the annexes of the Hôtel-Dieu, the ancient Paris hospital on the nearby Île de la Cité.

In even earlier times, monastic buildings, dormitories and a refectory belonging to the Clunesian priory of St. Julien, occupied this site.

The Robinia pseudoacacia, a species commonly known as a locust tree, is believed to have been planted by its namesake, Jean Robin (1550–1620), in 1601, from a seed brought back from the Appalachian Mountains in the United States;[1] if so, it has now been standing on the rive gauche for over four hundred years.

The tree lost its upper branches to a shell during World War I, but it proves its continuing vitality by blooming every year.