llowed him;
then came back to the great Hall, stopping on the way the barristers,
solicitors, ushers, clerks, and attendants, and repeating to all in a low
voice, so as not to be heard by the passers-by, the same question. To
this question some answered "Yes," others replied "No." And the man set
to work again, prowling about the Palace of Justice with the appearance
of a bloodhound seeking the trail.

He was a Commissary of the Arsenal Police.

What was he looking for?

The High Court of Justice.

What was the High Court of Justice doing?

It was hiding.

Why? To sit in Judgment?

Yes and no.

The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morning received from the
Prefect Maupas the order to search everywhere for the place where the
High Court of Justice might be sitting, if perchance it thought it its
duty to meet. Confusing the High Court with the Council of State, the
Commissary of Police had first gone to the Quai d'Orsay. Having found
nothing, not even the Council of State, he had come away empty-handed, at
all events had turned his steps towards the Palace of Justice, thinking
that as he had to search for justice he would perhaps find it there.

Not finding it, he went away.

The High Court, however, had nevertheless met together.

Where, and how? We shall see.

At the period whose annals we are now chronicling, before the present
reconstruction of the old buildings of Paris, when the Palace of Justice
was reached by the Cour de Harlay, a staircase the reverse of majestic
led thither by turning out into a long corridor called the Gallerie
Merciere. Towards the middle of this corridor there were two doors; one
on the right, which led to the Court of Appeal, the other on the left,
which led to the Court of Cassation. The folding-doors to the left opened
upon an old gallery called St. Louis, recently restored, and which serves
at the present time for a Salle des Pas Perdus to the barristers of the
Court of Cassation. A wooden statue of St. Louis stood opposite the
entrance door. An entrance contrived in a niche to the right of this
statue led into a winding lobby ending in a sort of blind passage, which
apparently was closed by two double doors. On the door to the right might
be read "First President's Room;" on the door to the left, "Council
Chamber." Between these two doors, for the convenience of the barristers
going from the Hall to the Civil Chamber, which formerly was the Great
Chamber of Parli