rior, the City of Paris, and the
department of the Seine, each in its due and exact proportion.

The Cour de Cassation is very handsomely lodged, as is its due, the
Salle des Deliberations, with its heavy ceiling of carved and gilded
wood, being one of the most important and luxurious in the Palais, and
the Chambre d'Audience having for its plafond the celebrated
_Glorification de la Loi_ of Paul Baudry. The literal and realistic
magistrate who doffs his cap in the midst of all these pretty
allegories, at the pedestal of the Law, wears the gown of the President
of the Cour de Cassation.

"If, in the middle of the afternoon, you should issue from the Salle des
Pas-Perdus, your ears buzzing with the incessant hubbub which fills it
for three hours every day, deafened by the shrill ringing of the bell
which calls the attorneys in different directions, and after having
followed the long Gallery _des Prisonniers_, you should penetrate into
the passages of the Cour de Cassation, you would be astonished at the
extraordinary contrast presented by these two portions of the Palais,
such near neighbors. Over there, the noise and the tumult of the crowd
of lawyers, the arguing of cases and the spectators; here, the dull
silence of deserted edifices.

"It would seem that Jurisprudence, a magician with somnolent powers, had
steeped in lethargic slumber his faithful servitors, and the old
councillors who nod their heads, during the hearing, in their majestic
seats, wearing the toque of black velvet the peculiar form of which has
procured for them the disrespectful appellation of 'lancers,' the
occasional attendants who pass silently through the long corridors, the
solitary soldier of the Garde Municipale seated on a bench in the
gallery Saint-Louis, frightened almost at the solemnity of the place,
all seem but sorrowful shadows guarding the sanctuary of the Supreme
Court. Even the spectators complete the impression of profound ennui
which disengages itself from the very walls; here are none of the ardent
or tedious pleadings, the passionate or cheerful discussions, which keep
alive the attention of counsellors and judges in the Cour d'Appel and
the Tribunal. Facts, actions, with their complications and their
peculiar interests, with their infinite variety, are here banished from
the argument. The Law here takes an ample revenge; here are discussed
only matters of pure legislation, profound decrees of the supreme court,
or the interm