Old and New Paris Part 30

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 a.s.signed 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 Palaeologus, 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 n.o.bleman, whereupon, in a spirit of equity and chivalry, not appreciated by the a.s.sembly, 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 cla.s.s 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 "Singularites 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 p.r.o.nounced 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-establis.h.i.+ng 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sured, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE QUAI DE L'HORLOGE.]

The bishops and doctors, a.s.sembled in council to p.r.o.nounce 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 censors.h.i.+p; and towards the end of the sixteenth century the Theatre of the Marble Table was given up altogether.

To pa.s.s 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 gla.s.s, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Munic.i.p.al 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 Cite. 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 Orfevres, it forms a quadrilateral ma.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al gate, and the central pavilion with its admirable facade 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 ma.s.sacre 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 Ca.s.sation, in which appeal cases are finally heard on questions of form, but of form only; the Court of Appeal, the Court of a.s.sizes, the Tribunal of First Instance, and the Tribunal of Police. These fill the halls of the immense building.

The Court of Ca.s.sation, 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 subst.i.tutes 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 subst.i.tutes, 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 a.s.sessors. 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 pa.s.sages.

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 princ.i.p.al 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 surpa.s.sing 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 succ.u.mbed, was lighted by order of the insurgent Commune on the 24th of May, 1871, when the troops from Versailles were entering Paris. The princ.i.p.al 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 Merciere, on the other with the Galerie Marchande. The names of "Merciere" and "Marchande" recall the time when the galleries so named, as well as the princ.i.p.al 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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, Moliere, 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 Merciere, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sessor 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 bal.u.s.trade technically known as the bar, on which lean the advocates as they deliver their speeches. The s.p.a.ce 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO THE COURT OF a.s.sIZE.]

Such is the general disposition of all the a.s.size 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 Merciere--escaped the fire of 1776. Its lateral and southern facade, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Merciere 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 ill.u.s.trative 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 Abbe 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 cus.h.i.+ons, 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'epremenil 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'epremenil 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'epremenil who had proclaimed the rights of the nation, and Barnave, the Girondists, the Queen of France, Mme. elizabeth, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Chaumette, Hebert, and Fabre d'eglantine; 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 Revolution and was afterwards to be known as the Place de la Concorde, or on the Place du Trone.

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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.sacres 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 p.r.o.nounced 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."