CHAPTER XXIII

.

THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE.

The _Palais de Justice_--Its Historical Associations--Disturbances in Paris--Successive Fires--During the Revolution--The Administration of Justice--The _Sainte-Chapelle_.

Next to Notre-Dame the most interesting edifice in the island of the City, at the corner of the Quai de l'Horloge, is the Palais de Justice, which dates from the time of the Romans. So much at least has been inferred, apart from the tradition on the subject, from the fact that when some years ago the building was reconstructed, Roman remains were discovered in the foundations. All, however, that can be affirmed with historical certainty as to the origin of the Palace is that towards the end of the ninth century it existed in the form of a fortress, and was the residence of the Frankish kings of the second race. It played an important part in the defence of Paris against the Normans invading the city by water from Rouen and the lower Seine. At the Palais de Justice lived the Counts of Paris, and afterwards the kings of the line which came to an end with the unfortunate "Louis Capet" (as in Revolutionary parlance he was called) who lost his head beneath the guillotine.

Louis le Gros, the protector of the Communes, died at the Palace in 1137. Philip Augustus, while undertaking the entire reconstruction of the Château du Louvre, made the Palace his habitual residence, and it was there that he married Ingelburga, sister of Canute, King of Denmark. Under the reign of this monarch, the court or tribunal of the King received for the first time the name of Parliament, its functions being to discuss and decide questions submitted to it by the Sovereign, and to pronounce on the illegality or legality of certain acts. In these days the royal residence was not luxuriously furnished, hay doing duty for carpet during the winter, and a matting of weeds during the summer. These primitive coverings of the palatial floors were given by Philip Augustus to the hospital known as the Hôtel-Dieu whenever the Court left Paris.

The King's Palace was called the Palace of Justice from the fact that here the Sovereign held Court, and decided the cases submitted to him by his subjects, sometimes with, sometimes without, the assistance of the before-mentioned Parliament. Here, too, St. Louis formed in a hall adjoining the Holy Chapel a library, in which he collected copies of all valuable manuscripts placed at his disposal. This library was open to learned and studious men, with whom the king loved to converse.

Philip the Fair enlarged the Palace; and under his reign the Parliament, formerly styled "ambulatory," became sedentary: it no longer, that is to say, followed the king in his journeys from one residence to another. The members of Parliament had lodgings assigned to them in that part of the building now occupied by the prison of the Conciergerie. Under the reign of Charles V. the first great clock that had ever been seen in France was placed in a square tower on the quay; whence the name "Quai de l'Horloge."

It was in the Palais de Justice that Charles VI. received the Greek Emperor, Manuel Palæologus, and the Emperor Sigismund, King of Hungary. A strange incident happened in connection with the visit of the latter sovereign. He had expressed a desire to witness the pleading of a case before the Parliament, and at the beginning of the process astonished everyone by taking the seat reserved for the King of France. One of the

## parties to the suit was about to lose his action on the ground that he

was not a nobleman, whereupon, in a spirit of equity and chivalry, not appreciated by the assembly, Sigismund rose from his seat, and calling to him the pleader, who, from no fault of his own, was getting defeated, made him a knight; which completely changed the aspect of affairs, and enabled the man who was in the right to gain his case.

It was at the Palace of Justice that the marriage of Henry V. of England with Catherine of France, daughter of Charles VI., was celebrated. Here, too, Henry VI., King of England, resided at the time of his coronation as King of France. Under the reign of Charles VII. certain clerks, "_les clercs de la basoche_," obtained permission to represent "farces and moralities" in the great banqueting hall, an immense marble table at one of the extremities of the hall serving as stage. According to a writer of the time, this table was "so long, so broad, and so thick, that no sheet of marble so thick, so broad, and so long was ever known elsewhere." The morality of the so-called "moralities" seems to have been more than doubtful; for after a time they were stopped by reason of their alleged impropriety. This was in 1476.

Soon, however, the clerks attached to the Palace of Justice reappeared on the marble table; when they again got themselves into trouble by satirising the Government of Charles VIII., and even Charles himself. Several of the authors and actors concerned in the piece were imprisoned, and were only liberated at the instance of the Bishop of Paris, who claimed for them "benefit of clergy."

The clerks of the tribunals and the students of the university were, in those days, troublesome folk. The students have always formed an exceptional class in Paris. Unlike the university students in England, they live in the capital, are exposed to its temptations, and take part in its struggles.

During the present century in commotions and insurrections they have always been on the popular side. In former times, however, they formed a party in themselves; and the students of Paris would engage with the citizens in formidable contests, which, with exaggerated features, resembled the "town and gown" rows of which our own universities have so often been the scene.

"In the year 1200," says the author of "Singularités Historiques," "a German gentleman studying at Paris sent his servant to a tavern to buy some wine. The servant was maltreated, whereupon the German students came to the aid of their fellow-countryman, and served the wine-dealer so roughly that they left him nearly dead. The townspeople now came to avenge the tavern-keeper; and, taking up arms, attacked the house of the German gentleman and his fellow-countrymen. There was great excitement throughout the town. The German gentleman and five students of his nation were killed. The Provost of Paris, Thomas by name, had been at the head of the Parisians in this onslaught; and the heads of the schools made a complaint on the subject to King Philip, who, without waiting for any further information, arrested the provost and several of his adherents, demolished their houses, tore up their vines and their fruit-trees, and fearing lest all the foreign students should desert Paris, issued a decree for the protection of the schools and those who frequented them. Thomas, for having incited instead of preventing disorder, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment."

In 1221 the students of the university, encouraged by the privileges granted to them by Philip Augustus, gave themselves up to all kinds of excesses, carrying away women and committing outrages, thefts, and murders; whereupon Bishop Guillaume pronounced excommunication against all who went about by night or day with arms. As the decree of excommunication produced little effect, the bishop caused the most seditious to be put in prison, and drove the others out of the town, thus re-establishing tranquillity.

In 1223 a violent quarrel and disturbance broke out between the scholars and the inhabitants. Three hundred and twenty students were killed and thrown into the Seine. Several professors went to the Pope to complain of so cruel a persecution; and some of them withdrew, with their students, from the capital. Paris was interdicted; and its schools, so superior to those of the other towns of France, remained without professors or scholars, and were closed.

During the thirteenth century there was as much credulity and fanaticism as there was anarchy in Paris. This was fully shown when a new sect, composed entirely of priests, declared itself. Its members denied the Real Presence, looked upon most of the ceremonies of the Church as useless, and ridiculed the worship of saints and relics. They addressed themselves particularly to women, persuading them that nothing they did was sinful so long as it was done from charity.

An ecclesiastic named Amaury, the chief of this sect, set forth his doctrine to the Pope, who condemned it. Amaury, it is said, died of grief, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Nicholas-in-the-Fields. The disciples he left behind him were nearly all ecclesiastics, or professors of the University of Paris. There was, however, one goldsmith among them, who, we are assured, uttered prophecies.

To discover the members of this sect a stratagem was employed. Raoul de Nemours and another priest pretended to share the opinions of the heretics, that they might afterwards denounce them. The offenders were then arrested and taken to the Place des Champeaux, when three bishops and doctors in theology deprived them of their degrees, and condemned them to be burnt alive. Fourteen of the unhappy men underwent this frightful punishment and supported it with courage. Four were excepted and condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The execution took place on the 21st of October, 1210.

[Illustration: THE QUAI DE L'HORLOGE.]

The bishops and doctors, assembled in council to pronounce judgment, condemned at the same time two books of Aristotle on metaphysics; and after delivering them over to the flames forbade all persons to transcribe them, read them, or "retain the contents in their memory" under pain of excommunication.

Under Louis XII. the irrepressible clerks of the Basoche ridiculed the sovereign as the personification of Avarice. The king was urged to treat the presumptuous young men as his predecessors had often done. "Let them play in all freedom," he replied. "Let them speak as they will of me and my Court. If they notice abuses why should they not point them out, when so many persons, reputed sage, are unwilling to do so?"

After the death of Louis XII. the representations of the clerks were subjected to a more and more severe censorship; and towards the end of the sixteenth century the Theatre of the Marble Table was given up altogether.

To pass to the reign of Francis I., it was at the Palais de Justice that this monarch received the challenge from the Emperor Charles V. His successors took up their residence in the Louvre, abandoning altogether the ancient palace, which was now occupied exclusively by the Law Courts. In 1618 a great portion of the building was destroyed by fire; and it was only by incurring great personal risk that the Registrar succeeded in saving the records of the Parliament. The fire was generally attributed to accomplices, real or supposed, of Ravaillac, the assassin of Henri IV. Although Ravaillac had declared himself solely responsible for the murder, and had received absolution only on condition of his swearing solemnly to the truth of his declaration, the police seemed resolved to implicate a number of other persons; and when a certain amount of evidence had been collected against them the suspected ones thought it judicious (so the story ran) to destroy all that had been written down against them. All the most characteristic, the most picturesque part of the building was destroyed, including the large hall lighted solely through windows of coloured glass, in which stood the statues of the Kings of France. Charles VII. had cut, with a chisel, the English King's face; and it was only by these mutilations that the statue of Henry VI. was recognised among the ruins. The famous marble table at the western extremity of the hall had been damaged beyond remedy by the flames. At the eastern extremity, the Chapel of Louis XI., in which that devout but treacherous monarch was represented kneeling to the Virgin, had been entirely destroyed.

[Illustration: PONT AU CHANGE AND PALAIS DE JUSTICE.]

Nearly all that remained of the ancient palace was the prison or "conciergerie," where Montgomery, who by mishap had slain his king in a tournament, and, at a later period, Damiens of the Four Horses had been confined. The tower of the conciergerie was for a long time called the Montgomery Tower.

Besides the conciergerie, the hall known as the Salle des Pas Perdus and the so-called "Kitchen of Saint-Louis," with an immense chimney-piece in each of the four corners, formed part of the ancient building.

In 1776 the Palais de Justice again took fire, and again was in great part reconstructed. In 1835, under Louis Philippe, the Town of Paris decided to enlarge it, and the plan by M. Huyot, the architect, was adopted by the Municipal Council in 1840. The royal sanction was then obtained; but Louis Philippe did not remain long enough on the throne to see the work of construction terminated. The Republican Government of 1848 stopped the building; and it was only under the Second Empire in 1854 that it was resumed, to be completed in 1868. More important by far than the re-alterations, additions, and reconstructions of which the Palais de Justice has in successive centuries been made the subject have been the changes in the French law, and in various matters connected with its administration. Up to the time of the Revolution citizens were arrested in the most arbitrary manner on mere suspicion, and imprisoned for an indefinite time without being able to demand justice in any form. Some half a dozen years before the uprising of 1789 the king had decreed that no one should be arrested except on a definite accusation; but the order was habitually set at nought.

The Palais de Justice of the present day occupies about one third of the total surface of the Cité. Enclosed on the east by the Boulevard du Palais, on the west by the Rue de Harlay, on the north by the Quai de l'Horloge, and on the south by the Quai des Orfèvres, it forms a quadrilateral mass in which all styles are opposed and confused, from the feudal towers of the Quai de l'Horloge to the new buildings begun in Napoleon III.'s reign, but never completed. To the left of this strange agglomeration the air is pierced by the graceful spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, admirable monument of the piety and of the art of the middle ages.

Some portions of the ancient Palace of Justice are preserved in the modern edifice, but only the substructures, as, for instance, in the northern buildings facing the Seine. The principal gate, and the central pavilion with its admirable façade at the bottom of the courtyard opening on to the Boulevard du Palais, were constructed under the reign of Louis XVI. The northern portion, from the clock tower, at the corner of the quay, to the third tower behind, has been restored or rebuilt in the course of the last thirty years. All the rest of the building is absolutely new.

The clock tower, a fine specimen of the military architecture of the fourteenth century, was furnished in 1370 by order of Charles V. with the first large clock that had been seen in Paris, the work of a German, called in France Henri de Vic. To this clock the northern quay owes its name of "Quai de l'Horloge du Palais" or "Quai de l'Horloge." The bell suspended in the upper part of the tower is said to have sounded the signal for the massacre of the Protestants on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1572; a doubtful honour, which is also claimed for the bell of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois.

The Palais de Justice, as it now exists, possesses a threefold character--legal, administrative, and punitive. Here cases are tried, here the Prefect of Police performs the multifarious duties of his office, and here criminals are imprisoned. Of the various law courts the Palais de Justice contains five: the Court of Cassation, in which appeal cases are finally heard on questions of form, but of form only; the Court of Appeal, the Court of Assizes, the Tribunal of First Instance, and the Tribunal of Police. These fill the halls of the immense building.

The Court of Cassation, divided into three chambers, counts forty-eight counsellors, a first president, three presidents of chamber, a procurator-general, six advocates-general, a registrar-in-chief, four ordinary registrars, three secretaries of the court, a librarian, eight ushers, and a receiver of registrations and fines; altogether seventy-seven persons. The Court of Appeal, divided into seven chambers, is composed of a first president, seven presidents of chamber, sixty-four counsellors, a procurator-general, seven advocates-general, eleven substitutes attached to the court, a registrar-in-chief, and fourteen ordinary registrars; altogether 106 persons. The number of officials and clerks employed in the Tribunal of First Instance is still greater. Divided into eleven chambers, the tribunal comprises one president, eleven vice-presidents, sixty-two judges, and fifteen supplementary judges, a public prosecutor, twenty-six substitutes, a registrar-in-chief, and forty-five clerks of registration. As for the Police Court, it is presided over in turn by each of the twenty magistrates of Paris, two Commissaries of Police doing duty as assessors. With the addition of two registrars and a secretary the entire establishment consists of six persons. The entire number of judges, magistrates, registrars, and secretaries employed at the Palais de Justice amounts to 351; without counting a floating body of some hundreds of barristers, solicitors, ushers, and clerks, thronging like a swarm of black ants a labyrinth of staircases, corridors, and passages. Yet the Palais de Justice, constantly growing, is still insufficient for the multiplicity of demands made upon it.

The history of the Palais de Justice is marked by the fires in which it has from time to time been burned down. The first of these broke out on the night of the 5th of March, 1618, when the principal hall and most of the buildings adjoining it were destroyed. The second, which took place on the 27th of October, 1737, consumed the buildings forming the Chamber of Accounts, situated at the bottom of the courtyard of the Sainte-Chapelle--an edifice of surpassing beauty, constructed in the fifteenth century by Jean Joconde, a monk of the Order of Saint Dominic.

The third fire declared itself during the night of January 10, 1776, in the hall known as the Prisoners' Gallery, from which it spread to all the central buildings. In this conflagration perished the old Montgomery Tower. The last of the fires in which so many portions of the Palais de Justice have turn by turn succumbed, was lighted by order of the insurgent Commune on the 24th of May, 1871, when the troops from Versailles were entering Paris. The principal hall, the prison, the old towers with all the civil and criminal archives (in the destruction of the latter the insurgents may have been specially interested) were all consumed.

These repeated catastrophes, together with numerous restorations, have left standing but very little of the ancient Palais de Justice. The central pavilion, reconstructed under Louis XVI. in accordance with the plans of the architect Desmaisons, is connected with two galleries of historical interest, on one side with the Galerie Mercière, on the other with the Galerie Marchande. The names of "Mercière" and "Marchande" recall the time when the galleries so named, as well as the principal hall and the outer walls of the palace, were occupied by stalls and booths in which young and pretty shop-girls sold all sorts of fashionable and frivolous trifles, such as ribbons, bows, and embroideries. Here, too, new books were offered for sale. Here Claude Barbin and his rivals sold to the patrons and patronesses of the stage the latest works of Corneille, Molière, and Racine. Here appointments of various kinds were made, but especially of one kind.

The Palace Gallery, or Galerie du Palais, was the great meeting-place for the fashionable world until only a few years before the great Revolution, when it was deserted for the Palais Royal. Some of its little shops continued to live a meagre life until the reign of Louis Philippe. Now everything of the kind has disappeared, with the exception of two privileged establishments where "toques" and togas--in plain English, caps and gowns--can be bought, or even hired, by barristers attending the "palace."

The entrance to the central building is from the Galerie Mercière, through a portico supported by Ionic columns, and surmounted by the arms of France. The visitor reaches a broad, well-lighted staircase, where, half-way up, stands in a niche an impressive statue of Law, the work of Gois, bearing in one hand a sceptre, and in the other the Book of the Law, inscribed with the legend "In legibus salus."

[Illustration: THE CLOCK OF THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE.]

The grand staircase of the Palais leads through a waiting-room, which serves also as a library, to the three first chambers of the Court of Appeal. The rooms are of a becomingly severe aspect. The walls are painted a greenish grey, of one uniform tint. The tribunal is sometimes oblong, sometimes in horse-shoe form. On the right sits the assessor representing the Minister of Justice, on the left the registrar on duty. In the "parquet," or enclosure beneath the tribunal, is the table of the usher, who calls the next case, executes the president's behests, and maintains order in the court, exclaiming "Silence, gentlemen," with the traditional voice and accent.

The "parquet" is shut in by a balustrade technically known as the bar, on which lean the advocates as they deliver their speeches. The space furnished with benches which is reserved for them, and where plaintiff and defendant may also sit, is enclosed by a second bar, designed to keep off the public properly so-called, and prevent it from pressing too closely upon the court. There is no witness-box in a French court. The witness stands in the middle of the court and recites, often in a speech that has evidently been prepared beforehand, all he knows about the case under trial.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE COURT OF ASSIZE.]

Such is the general disposition of all the assize chambers in the Palais de Justice. Some, however, present features of their own. The first chamber, for instance, contains a magnificent Calvary, by Van Eyck; one of the rare objects of art which survive from the ancient ornamentation of the palace. On the centre of the picture, rising like a dome between two side panels, is the Saviour on the Cross. On His right is the Virgin supported by two holy women, by Saint John the Baptist and by Saint Louis, graced with the exact features of King Charles VII., under whose reign this masterpiece was executed. On the left are Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Denis, and Saint Charlemagne. Above the head of our Lord are the Holy Ghost and the Eternal Father surrounded by angels, while the background is occupied by a landscape less real than curious; for it represents the City of Jerusalem, the Tower of Nesle, the Louvre, and the Gothic buildings of the Palais de Justice. This work, by the great painter of Bruges, executed in the early part of the fifteenth century, was formerly in the Principal Hall of the Parliament, beneath the portrait of Louis XII., which the people (whose "father" he claimed to be) destroyed in 1793. The portion of the building which contains the three first chambers of the court--behind the portico opening on to the Galerie Mercière--escaped the fire of 1776. Its lateral and southern façade, turned towards the courtyard of the Sainte-Chapelle, is pierced with lofty windows, sculptured in the Renaissance style. It must have been constructed under the Valois, or under the reign of Henri IV. But it is difficult to ascertain its early history, for but few writers have given much attention to the subject.

[Illustration: THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE.]

[Illustration: THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE AND SAINTE-CHAPELLE.]

The fifth, sixth, and seventh chambers of the Court of Appeal are all entered from the Galerie Marchande; while the fourth chamber stands in the north-east corner of the said gallery. On the left of the Galerie Mercière is the famous Salle des Pas Perdus, seventy-four metres long and twenty-eight broad. This is the great entrance hall to the courts generally. Why it should be called "Salle des Pas Perdus" is not evident, though the name may be due either to the "lost steps" of litigants bringing or defending actions without result, or, more probably, to the "lost steps" of those who walk wearily to and fro for an indefinite time, vainly expecting their case to be called on. Whatever the derivation of its name, the Salle des Pas Perdus is considered one of the finest halls in Europe. Twice has it been destroyed by fire and twice rebuilt. The first large hall of the palace, as it was at that time called, was built under Philip the Fair and finished towards 1313. It was adorned successively with the statues of the kings of France from Pharamond to Francis I.; the successful ones being represented with their hands raised to heaven in token of thanksgiving, the unfortunate ones with head and hands lowered towards the ground. The most celebrated ornament of the large hall was the immense marble table of which ample mention has already been made.

After the fire of 1618 (in which the table split into several pieces, still preserved in the vaults of the palace) a new hall on the same site, and of the same dimensions as the old one, was built by Jacques Desbrosses, which was burnt in 1871 by the Commune, to be promptly rebuilt by MM. Duc Dommey and Daumet.

The seven civil chambers of the tribunal are entered through the Salle des Pas Perdus, either from the ground floor or from the upper storey, which is reached by two staircases. This portion of the palace was

## partly reconstructed in 1853 under the reign of Napoleon III., Baron

Haussmann being Prefect of the Seine. The fact is recorded on a marble slab let into one of the walls. In the middle of the south part of the Salle des Pas Perdus, a marble monument was raised in 1821 to Malesherbes, the courageous advocate who defended Louis XVI. at the bar of the Convention. The monument comprises the statue of Malesherbes with figures of France and Fidelity by his side. On the pedestal are low reliefs, representing the different phases of the memorable trial. The statues are by Cortot, the illustrative details by Bosio. The Latin inscription engraved on the pedestal was composed by Louis XVIII., in whose reign the monument was executed and placed in its present position. This king, who translated Horace and otherwise distinguished himself as a Latinist, is the author of more than one historical inscription in the Latin language, and he commemorated by this means, not only the heroism of Malesherbes, who defended Louis XVI. at the trial, but also the piety of the Abbé Edgeworth, who accompanied him to the scaffold.

Towards the end of the hall, on the other side, is the statue of Berryer, which, according to M. Vitu, is "the homage paid to eloquence considered as the auxiliary of justice." In the north-east corner of the Hall of Lost Steps, to the left of Berryer's monument, is the entrance to the first chamber, once the bed-chamber of Saint Louis, and which, reconstructed with great magnificence by Louis XII. for his marriage with Mary of England, daughter of King Henry VII., took the name of the Golden Room. It afterwards played an important part in the annals of the Parliament of Paris. Here Marshal de Biron was condemned to death on the 28th of July, 1602. Here a like sentence was pronounced against Marshal d'Ancre on the 8th of July, 1617. Here the kings of France held their Bed of Justice, solidly built up at the bottom of the hall in the right corner, and composed of a lofty pile of cushions, covered with blue velvet, in which golden fleurs de lis were worked. Here, finally, on the 3rd of May, 1788, the Marquis d'Agoult, commanding three detachments of French Guards, Swiss Guards, Sappers, and Cavalry, entered to arrest Counsellors d'Épréménil and Goislard, when the president, surrounded by 150 magistrates and seventeen peers of France, every one wearing the insignia of his dignity, called upon him to point out the two inculpated members, and exclaimed: "We are all d'Épréménil and Goislard! What crime have they committed?"

A resolution had been obtained from the Parliament declaring that the nation alone had the right to impose taxes through the States-General. This resolution and the scene which followed were the prelude to the French Revolution. Four years later there was no longer either monarch or parliament, French Guards or Swiss Guards. The great chamber of the palace had become the "Hall of Equality," where, on the 17th of April, 1792, was established the first Revolutionary Tribunal, to be replaced on the 10th of May, 1793, by the criminal tribunal extraordinary; which was reorganised on the 26th of September by a decree which contained this phrase, still more extraordinary than the tribunal itself: "A defender is granted by law to calumniated patriots, but refused to conspirators." Here were arraigned--one cannot say tried--that same d'Épréménil who had proclaimed the rights of the nation, and Barnave, the Girondists, the Queen of France, Mme. Élizabeth, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Chaumette, Hébert, and Fabre d'Églantine; then, one after the other, the Robespierres, with Couthon, Collot d'Herbois, Saint-Just, Henriot, and Fouquier-Tinville--altogether 2,742 victims, whose 2,742 heads fell into the red basket either on the former Place Louis XV., which had become the Place de la Révolution and was afterwards to be known as the Place de la Concorde, or on the Place du Trône. The numbered list, which used to be sent out, like a newspaper, to subscribers, has been preserved. It began with the slaughter of the 26th of August, 1792, in which La Porte, intendant of the civil list, the journalist Durozoi, and the venerable Jacques Cazotte, author of "Le Diable Amoureux," lost their heads.

Cazotte had kept up a long correspondence with Ponteaux, secretary of the civil list, and had sent him several plans for the escape of the Royal Family, together with suggestions, from his point of view invaluable, for crushing the revolution. The letters were seized at the house of the intendant of the civil list, the before-mentioned La Porte; and thereupon Cazotte was arrested. His daughter Elizabeth followed him to prison; and they were both at the Abbaye during the atrocious massacres of September. The unhappy young girl had been separated from her father since the beginning of the executions, and she now thought only of rejoining him either to save his life or to die with him. Suddenly she heard him call out, and then hurried down a staircase in the midst of a jingle of arms. Before there was time to arrest him she rushed towards him, reached him, threw her arms around him, and so moved the terrible judges by her daughterly affection that they were completely disarmed. Not only was the old man spared, but he and his heroic daughter were sent back with a guard of honour to their home. Soon afterwards, however, the father was again arrested, and brought before the revolutionary tribunal. On the advice of the counsel defending him, he denied the competence of the court on the plea of _autrefois acquit_. It was ruled, however, that the court was dealing with new facts, and the judges had indeed simply to apply the decree pronounced against those who had taken part in preparing the repression of the 10th of August. The evidence against Cazotte was only too clear, and he was condemned to death; which suggested the epigram that "Judges struck where executioners had spared."

But these very judges, bound by inflexible laws, could not refuse the expression of their pity and esteem to the unhappy old man. While condemning him to death they rendered homage to his honesty and his courage. "Why," exclaimed the public accuser, "after a virtuous life of seventy-two years, must you now be declared guilty? Because it is not sufficient to be a good husband and a good father; because one must also be a good citizen." The President of the Court, in pronouncing sentence, said with gravity and emotion: "Old man, regard the approach of death without fear. It has no power to alarm you. It can have no terrors for such a man as you."

Cazotte ascended with fortitude the steps of the scaffold, and exclaimed, before lowering his head: "I die as I have lived, faithful to my God and to my king." The last victim of the 2,472 was Coffinhal, vice-president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and member of the Council-General of the Paris Commune.

No show of equity, no imitation even of judicial forms, gave colour to these bloody sacrifices. Most of the victims, condemned beforehand, were brought to the prison of the Conciergerie at eight in the morning, led before the tribunal at two, and executed at four. A printing office established in a room adjoining the court was connected with the latter by an opening in the wall, through which notes and documents relating to the case before the tribunal were passed; and often the sentence was composed, printed, and hawked for sale in the streets before being read to the victims.

"You disgrace the guillotine!" said Robespierre one day to Fouquier-Tinville, the public accuser.

Of this historic hall nothing now remains but the four walls. Still, however, may be seen the little door of the staircase which Marie Antoinette ascended to appear before the revolutionary jury, and which she afterwards descended on the way to her dungeon.

The Galerie Saint-Louis is the name given to the ancient gallery connected with the Galerie Marchande, its name being justified by the various forms in which incidents from the life of Saint Louis are represented on its walls. Here, in sculptured and coloured wood, is the effigy of Saint Louis, close to the open space where, when centuries ago it was a garden, the pious king was wont to imitate, and sometimes to render, justice beneath the spreading trees. One of the bureaux in the Palais de Justice contains an alphabetical list of all the sentences passed, by no matter what court, against any person born in one of the districts of Paris or of the department of the Seine. This record, contemplated by Napoleon I., was established in 1851 by M. Rouher, at that time Minister of Justice. The list is kept strictly secret; nor is any extract permitted except on the requisition of a magistrate, or on the application of one of the persons sentenced, requiring it in his own interest.

[Illustration: THE FAÇADE OF THE OLD PALAIS DE JUSTICE.]

The Bureau of "Judicial Assistance," dating from 1851, enables any indigent person to plead _in formâ pauperis_, whether as plaintiff or defendant. Nor is he obliged to plead in person. Not only stamped paper, but solicitors, barristers, and every legal luxury are supplied to him gratuitously. It is at the expense of the lawyers that the pauper litigant is relieved.

Two curious bureaux connected with the Palais de Justice are those in which are kept, sealed up and divided into series indicated by different colours, objects of special value taken from persons brought before the court, or voluntarily deposited by them; together with sums of money which, in like manner, have passed into the hands of legal authorities. Still more curious is the collection of articles of all kinds stored in a sort of museum, which presents the aspect at once of a bazaar and of a pawnbroker's shop. Here, in striking confusion, are seen boots and shoes, clothes, wigs, rags, and a variety of things seized and condemned as fraudulent imitations; likewise instruments of fraud, such as false scales. Here, too, in abundance are murderous arms--knives, daggers, and revolvers. Singularly interesting is the collection of burglarious instruments of the most different patterns, from the enormous lump of iron, which might be used as a battering ram, to the most delicately-made skeleton key, feeble enough in appearance, but sufficiently strong to force the lock of an iron safe. There is now scarcely room for the constantly increasing collection of objects at the service of fraud and crime.

Beneath this strange exhibition, rendered still more sinister by the method and order with which it is arranged, are disposed in two storeys the four chambers which together constitute the civil tribunal. Connected with the criminal tribunal, their duty is to try offences punishable by a scale of sentences, with five years' imprisonment as the maximum. According to one of the last legislative enactments of the Second Empire, persons brought before a police-court remained provisionally at liberty except under grave circumstances. Cases, moreover, in which the offender has been taken _in flagrante delicto_ are decided in three days. "This is a sign of progress," says M. Vitu; "but Paris still needs an institution of which London is justly proud, that of district magistrates, something like our _juges de paix_, deciding police cases forthwith. The principal merit of this institution is that it prevents arbitrary detention and serious mistakes such as unfortunately are only too frequent with us. Instances have occurred, and will occur again, in which an inoffensive man, arrested by mistake, in virtue of a regular warrant intended for another of the same name, is sent straight to the criminal prison of Mazas. It will then take him a week to get set at liberty. In London he would have been taken at once to the magistrate of the district, who would have proceeded without delay to the verification of his identity. It would have been the affair of two hours at most, thanks to the service of constables at the disposal, day and night, of the English magistrate."

[Illustration: THE SALLE DES PAS PERDUS.]

The police-courts have sometimes to deal with remarkable cases, but as a rule their duties are of a somewhat trivial character. Adventurers of a low order, swindlers on a petty scale, and street thieves who have been caught with their hands in the pocket of a gentleman or the muff of a lady, are the sort of persons they usually deal with. To these may be added vendors of pretended theatrical admissions, hawkers of forbidden books, and a few drunkards. From morning till night the police are constantly bringing in poor wretches of both sexes; the men for the most part in blouses, the women in rags. They arrive in "cellular" carriages, vulgarly called "salad baskets"; and leaving the vehicle they are kept together by a long cord attached to the wrist of each prisoner. The place of confinement where they remain pending the trial is called the "mouse-trap": two rows, placed one above the other, each of twenty-five cells, containing one prisoner apiece. Every cell is closed in front by an iron grating, in the centre of which is a small aperture--a little square window looking into the corridor. Through this window, which can be opened and shut, but which is almost invariably kept open, the prisoner sees all that takes place in the passage, and the occasional arrival of privileged visitors helps to break the monotony of his day. The wire cages in which the prisoners are detained suggest those of the Zoological Gardens; and the character of the wild beast is too often imprinted on the vicious criminal features of the incarcerated ones.

Disputes with cab-drivers and hackney coachmen generally are, as a rule, settled by the commissary of the district or the _quartier_. But serious complaints have now and then to be brought before the Tribunal of Police. In former times the hackney coaches of Paris were at once the disgrace and the terror of the town. "Nothing," writes Mercier, "can more offend the eye of a stranger than the shabby appearance of these vehicles, especially if he has ever seen the hackney coaches of London and Brussels. Yet the aspect of the drivers is still more shocking than that of the carriages, or of the skinny hacks that drag those frightful machines. Some have but half a coat on, others none at all; they are uniform in one point only, that is extreme wretchedness and insolence. You may observe the following gradation in the conduct of these brutes in human shape. Before breakfast they are pretty tractable, they grow restive towards noon, but in the evening they are not to be borne. The commissaries or justices of the peace are the only umpires between the driver and the drivee; and, right or wrong, their award is in favour of the former, who are generally taken from the honourable body of police greyhounds, and are of course allied to the formidable phalanx of justices of the peace. However, if you would roll on at a reasonable pace, be sure you take a hackney coachman half-seas-over. Nothing is more common than to see the traces giving way, or the wheels flying off at a tangent. You find yourself with a broken shin or a bloody nose; but then, for your comfort, you have nothing to pay for the fare. Some years ago a report prevailed that some alterations were to take place in the regulation of hackney coaches; the Parisian phaetons took the alarm and drove to Choisy, where the King was at that time. The least appearance of a commotion strikes terror to the heart of a despot. The sight of 1,800 empty coaches frightened the monarch; but his apprehensions were soon removed by the vigilance of his guard and courtiers. Four representatives of the phaetonic body were clapped into prison and the speaker sent to Bicêtre, to deliver his harangue before the motley inhabitants of that dreary mansion. The safety of the inhabitants doubtless requires the attention of the Government, in providing carriages hung on better springs and generally more cleanly; but the scarcity of hay and straw, not to mention the heavy impost of twenty sols per day for the privilege of rattling over the pavement of Paris, when for the value of an English shilling you may go from one end of the town to the other, prevents the introduction of so desirable a reformation."

In another part of his always interesting "Picture of Paris," Mercier becomes quite tragic on the subject of Paris coaches and Paris coachmen. "Look to the right," he says, "and see the end of all public rejoicings in Paris; see that score of unfortunate men, some of them with broken legs and arms, some already dead or expiring. Most of them are parents of families, who by this catastrophe must be reduced to the most horrible misery. I had foretold this accident as the consequence of that file of coaches which passed us before. The police take so little notice of these chance medleys that it is simply a wonder such accidents, already too frequent, are not still more numerous. The threatening wheel which runs along with such rapidity carries an obdurate man in power, who has not leisure, or indeed cares not, to observe that the blood of his fellow-subjects is yet fresh on the stones over which his magnificent chariot rattles so swiftly. They talk of a reformation, but when is it to take place? All those who have any share in the administration keep carriages, and what care they for the pedestrian traveller? Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the year 1776, on the road to Mesnil-Montant, was knocked down by a large Lapland dog and remained on the spot, whilst the master, secure in his berline, passed him by with that stoic indifference which amounts to savage barbarity. Rousseau, lame and bruised, was taken up and conducted to his house by some charitable peasants. The gentleman, or rather savage, learning the identity of the person whom the dog had knocked down, sent a servant to know what he could do for him. 'Tell him,' said Rousseau, 'to keep his dog chained,' and dismissed the messenger. When a coachman has crushed or crippled a passenger, he may be carried before a commissaire, who gravely inquires whether the accident was occasioned by the fore wheels or the hind wheels. If one should die under the latter, no pecuniary damage can be recovered by the heirs-at-law, because the coachman is answerable only for the former; and even in this case there is a police standard by which he is merely judged at so much an arm and so much a leg! After this we boast of being a civilised nation!"

In addition to the place of detention already described, the Palais de Justice contains a permanent prison known historically as the Conciergerie, and, by its official name, as the House of Justice. Here are received, on the one hand, prisoners about to be tried before the Assize Court or the Appeal Court of Police; on the other, certain prisoners who are the object of special favour and who consider themselves fortunate to be confined in this rather than any other prison. The list of celebrated persons who have been detained in the Conciergerie would be a long one, from the Constable of Armagnac (1440) to Prince Napoleon (1883). Here may still be seen the dungeons of Damiens, of Ravaillac, of Lacenaire the murderer, of André Chenier the poet, of Mme. Roland, and of Robespierre. The name whose memory, in connection with this fatal place, extinguishes all others is that of the unhappy Marie Antoinette. After a captivity of nearly a year in the Temple the queen was conducted on the 5th of August, 1792, to the Conciergerie, and there shut up in a dark narrow cell called the Council Hall, lighted from the courtyard by a little window crossed with iron bars. This Council Hall was previously divided into two by a partition, which had now been removed; and in place of it a screen was fixed which, during her sleep, shut the queen off from the two gendarmes ordered to watch her day and night. The daughter of the Cæsars left her dungeon on the 15th of October, 1793, dressed in black, to appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the next day, dressed in white, to step into the cart which conveyed her to the guillotine erected on the Place Louis XV.

[Illustration: POLICE CARRIAGES.]

This historical dungeon, which, says M. Vitu, could not contain the tears which it has caused to be shed, and ought to have been walled up in order to bury the memory of a crime unworthy of the French nation, was transformed into a chapel by order of Louis XVIII. in 1816. The altar bears a Latin inscription which, like others previously referred to, was composed by the king himself.

Close to the queen's dungeon is the so-called Hall of the Girondists (formerly a chapel), in which the most enlightened and the most heroic of the Revolutionists are said, by a not too trustworthy legend, to have passed their last night.

* * * * *

Locally and even architecturally connected with the Palace of Justice is the Holy Chapel, one of the most perfect sacred buildings that Paris possesses. The courtyard of the Holy Chapel, mentioned more than once in connection with the Palace of Justice, stands at the south-east corner of the principal building, and is shut in by the Tribunal of Police and a portion of the Court of Appeal. It can be entered from five different points: from the Boulevard of the Palace of Justice; by two different openings from the Police Tribunal; from the so-called depôt of the Prefecture of Police; and from the Cour du Mai on the north-east. No more admirable specimen of the religious architecture of the middle ages is to be found; nor is any church or chapel more venerable by its origin and its antiquity. Founded by Robert I. in 921, the year of his accession to the throne, it replaced, in the royal palace of which it had formed part, a chapel dedicated to Saint Bartholomew, which dated from the kings of the first dynasty.

[Illustration: THE CONCIERGERIE, PALAIS DE JUSTICE.]

The royal palace contained, moreover, several private oratories, including in particular one dedicated to the Holy Virgin. In 1237 Baudouin II., Emperor of Constantinople, exhausted by the wars he had been sustaining against the Greeks, came to France to beg assistance from King Saint Louis. Baudouin was of the House of Flanders, and in consideration of a large sum of money, he pledged to the French king his county of Namur, and allowed him to redeem certain holy relics--the crown of thorns, the sponge which had wiped away the blood and sweat of the Saviour, and the lance with which his side had been pierced--on which the Venetians, the Genoese, the Abbess of Perceul, Pietro Cornaro, and Peter Zauni had lent 13,000 gold pieces. The relics arrived in France the year afterwards, and crossed the country in the midst of pious demonstrations from the whole population. The king himself, and the Count of Artois, went to receive them at Sens and bore on their shoulders the case containing the crown of thorns. Thus, in formal procession, they passed through the streets of Sens and of Paris; and the holy king deposited the relics in the oratory of the Virgin until a building should be erected specially for their reception. This was the Holy Chapel, of which the first stone was laid in 1245. The work had been entrusted to the architect Pierre de Montreuil or de Montereau. In three years it was finished, the chapel being inaugurated on the 25th of April, 1248. "Only three years for the construction of such an edifice," exclaims a French writer, "when the nineteenth century cannot manage to restore it in thirty years!"

[Illustration: THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE.]

The Holy Chapel is composed of two chapels one above the other, having a single nave without transept, each chapel possessing a separate entrance. The upper chapel, approached through the Galerie Mercière, was reserved for the king and his family, who, from the royal palace, entered it on foot. The lower chapel, intended for the inferior officers attached to the court, became later on, in virtue of a papal bull, the parish church of all who lives in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace. If the Holy Chapel is admirable by its design and proportions, it is a marvel of construction from a technical point of view. It rests on slender columns, which seem incapable of supporting it. The roof, in pointed vaulting, is very lofty; and for the last six centuries it has resisted every cause of destruction, including the fire which, in 1630, threatened the entire building.

No more beautiful specimens of stained glass are to be seen than in the Holy Chapel, with its immense windows resplendent in rich and varied colours. A remarkable statue of the Virgin bowing her head as if in token of assent, now at the Hôtel Cluny, belonged originally to the Holy Chapel. According to a pious legend, the figure bent forward to show approval of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as formulated by Duns Scotus, who was teaching theology at Paris in 1304, and from the time of the miracle until now maintains the same gesture of inclination.

More than one mediæval tradition makes statues, and especially statues of the Virgin, perform similar actions. There is, for example, in the _Contes Dévots_ a story of a statue of the Virgin to which a certain _bourgeois qui aimait une dame_ prayed that she would either make the lady return his love or cause that love to cease. Some time previously a Hebrew magician had offered to secure the lady's affections for the infatuated _bourgeois_ provided he would renounce God, the saints, and especially the Blessed Virgin; to which the despondent lover replied that though, in his grief and despair, he might abandon everything else, yet nothing could make him relinquish his allegiance and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. This fidelity, under all temptations, gave him some right, he hoped, to implore the influence of the merciful Virgin towards softening the heart of the woman he so passionately loved; and the statue of the Virgin, before which he prostrated himself, showed by a gentle inclination of the head that his prayer was heard. Fortunately, the lady whose cold demeanour had so vexed the heart of her lover was in the church at the very moment of the miracle, and, seeing the Virgin bow her head to the unhappy _bourgeois_, felt convinced that he must be an excellent man. Thereupon she went up to him, asked him why he looked so sad, reproached him gently with not having visited her of late, and ended by assuring him that if he still loved her she fully returned his affection. Somewhat analogous to this legend, though in a different order of ideas, is that of the Commander whose statue Don Juan invited to supper, with consequences too familiar to be worth repeating.

The ancient statue of the Virgin, once in the Holy Chapel, venerated now in the Hôtel Cluny, regarded simply as a curiosity, has been replaced by a modern statue. The sacred relics which the Holy Chapel at one time possessed are still preserved at Notre Dame. The gold case which enclosed them was, at the beginning of the Revolution, sent to the Mint to be converted into coin.

The spire which now surmounts the Holy Chapel is the fourth since the erection of the building. The first one, by Pierre de Montreuil, was crumbling away from age under the reign of Charles V., who thereupon had it restored by a master-carpenter, Robert Foucher. Burnt in the great fire of 1630, this second spire was re-constructed by order of Louis XIII., and destroyed during the Revolution. The fourth edition of it, which still exists, was built by M. Lassus in the florid style of the first years of the fifteenth century.

The one thing which strikes the visitor to the Holy Chapel above everything else, and which cannot but make a lasting impression on him, is the wonderful beauty of the stained glass windows already referred to. They date, for the most part, from the reign of Saint Louis, and were put in on the day the building was consecrated in 1248. In their present condition and form, however, they take us back only to the year 1837. During forty-six years (1791 to 1837) the Holy Chapel was given up to all kinds of uses. First it was a club-house, then a flour magazine, and finally a bureau for official documents. This last was the least injurious of the purposes to which it was turned. Nevertheless the incomparable stained glass windows were interfered with by the construction of various boxes and cupboards along the sides of the building, no less than three metres of the lower part of each window being thus sacrificed. Certain glaziers, moreover, employed to take down the windows, clean them, and put them back, had made serious mistakes, restoring portions of windows to the wrong frames. The subjects of the stained art-work are all from the Holy Scriptures, and on a thousand glass panels figure a thousand different personages.

The restoration of the windows had been entrusted, after a public competition, to M. Henri Gérante, a French artist who, more than any other, has contributed to the resurrection of the seemingly lost art of painting on glass. But, unhappily, M. Gérante died before beginning his work, which, thereupon, was divided between M. Steintheil, for the drawing and painting, and M. Lusson for the material preparation. Their labours were crowned with the most complete success. Entering the Holy Chapel one is literally dazzled by the bright rich colours from the windows on all sides, blending together in the most harmonious manner.

[Illustration: THE LOWER CHAPEL OF THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE.]

Right and left of the nave the place is shown where Saint Louis and Blanche de Castille were accustomed to sit opposite one another to hear mass and other religious services. A corner, moreover, is pointed out, with an iron network before it, where, according to a doubtful tradition, the suspicious Louis XI. used to retire in order to hear mass without being seen; perhaps also to watch the faithful at their prayers. In many an old French church corners and passages may be met with, protected by a network or simply by rails, which served, it is said, to shut off lepers from the general congregation.

* * * * *

Closely associated with the Palais de Justice is the Tribunal of Commerce, which has its own code, its own judges and functionaries. Three centuries ago the necessity was recognised in France of leaving commercial and industrial cases to the decision of men competent, from their occupation, to deal with such matters. Paris owes its Tribunal of Commerce to King Charles IX.; but the code under which issues are now decided dates only from September, 1807--from the First Empire, that is to say. The commercial judges are named for two years by the merchants and tradesmen domiciled in the department of the Seine. Formerly the Tribunal of Commerce, or Consular Tribunal, held its sittings at the back of the Church of Saint-Méry in the Hôtel des Consuls, the gate of which used to support a statue of Louis XIV., by Simon Guilain.

[Illustration: THE UPPER CHAPEL OF THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE.]

This mercantile court consists of five merchants, the first bearing the title of judge, and the four others that of consuls. The Tribunal of Commerce was removed from the old house in the Rue Saint-Méry in 1826, to be installed on the first storey of the newly constructed Bourse. Soon, however, the place assigned to it became inadequate for the constantly increasing number of cases brought before the court; and a special edifice was erected for the Tribunal of Commerce in the immediate vicinity of the Palais de Justice. This structure, quadrilateral in form, is bounded on the north by the Quai aux Fleurs, on the east by the Rue Aubé, on the south by the Rue de Lutèce, and on the west by the Boulevard du Palais. To build a new Palais de Justice it was necessary to destroy all that existed of the ancient Cité. One curious building, which, after undergoing every kind of modification, ultimately, in order to make room for the Court of Commerce, disappeared altogether, was the ancient Church of Saint Bartholomew. This sacred edifice during the early days of the Revolution, when churches had gone very much out of fashion, became the Théâtre Henri IV., to be afterwards called Palais Variété, Théâtre de la Cité, Cité Variété, and Théâtre Mozart. Here was represented, in 1795, "The Interior of the Revolutionary Committees," the most cutting satire ever directed against the tyranny of the Jacobins; and, in another style, "The Perilous Forest, or the Brigands of Calabria," a true type of the ancient melodrama. Suppressed in 1807, this theatre underwent a number of transformations, to serve at last as a dancing saloon, known to everyone and beloved by students under the title of The Prado.

[Illustration: THE TRIBUNAL OF COMMERCE.]

The cupola of the Tribunal of Commerce is a reproduction, as to form, of the cupola of a little church which attracted the attention of Napoleon III. on the borders of the Lake of Garda while he was awaiting the result of the attack on the Solferino Tower. The Audience Chamber of the Tribunal is adorned with paintings by Robert Fleury, representing incidents in the commercial history of France from Charles IX. to Napoleon III.

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