rom a photograph, by E Tilly.]

Among the multitude of attendants and habitues of the judicial tribunals
are the necessary witnesses and experts, of all kinds in degree,--the
_temoin a charge_, important witness, listened to with attention; the
_temoin a decharge_, uncertain and ill at ease; the _expert-comptable_,
very conscientious; the _expert en ecriture_, in handwriting, very
positive and authoritative and unreliable, after the manner of his kind;
the experts in medicine, in mental ailments, in physics, etc. The
various degrees of willingness and unwillingness on the part of those
who receive these official _assignations a temoin_ are much as in other
climes.

After the summer vacation, the opening of the courts is preceded by an
annual divine service, the _messe rouge_ [the red mass], held in the
Sainte-Chapelle and attended by all the magistrates in their robes of
office, red, black, and ermine. In 1898, this ceremony took place on
October 17th, and was presided over by Cardinal Richard, Archbishop of
Paris. The mass was celebrated by Canon Pousset, of the cathedral of
Notre-Dame. After the service, the magistrates return to their courts in
hieratic procession, following each other strictly in the order of their
rank, the walls of the passage-ways being hung, for the occasion, with
Gobelins tapestry.

A similar ceremony has been introduced in London. For the second time,
in this same month of October, 1898, the legal year was inaugurated by a
religious service celebrated with great pomp at Westminster. The Lord
Chancellor, the judges, the Queen's Counsel, and a great number of
representatives of the bar were present at this _messe rouge_ English
and Anglican. The Catholic judges and lawyers have long been in the
habit of attending a similar service on this occasion in one of their
own churches.

[Illustration: OBVERSE.

CENTENARY MEDAL, ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE.]

By an excellent arrangement, the Palais de Justice is enabled to lodge
its criminals in one of its dependencies, the prison of the
Conciergerie, whence the guards conduct them directly, by private
staircases, to the court-room where they are to be tried,--thus avoiding
any unseemly exposure of these unfortunates to the populace. An
ingenious supposition as to the origin of the name of this famous
prison, a barracks under the old kings of France, is furnished by M.
Pottet,--that it was inhabited by a certain captain who provided himself
with the title