Named after the rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, which honours Cardinal Jean Lemoine (1250–1313).
Bishop of Arras, he was sent by Pope Boniface VIII as legate to Philip the Fair. In 1302 he bought land here from the Augustinian friars and founded a college for a hundred students, first called the Maison du Cardinal and named after him after his death. Abolished in 1790, the college made way for the street, opened on its grounds in 1825.