of _Comte des Cierges_ [Count of Candles], concierge,
janitor, or house-porter. Those who are confined in the Conciergerie are
the criminals who are to appear before the Cour d'Assises; those
convicted by the police correctionnelle of the departments, waiting the
result of their appeal to a higher court, and those condemned to death
during the three days which the law allows them for their appearance _en
cassation_.

[Illustration: REVERSE.

CENTENARY MEDAL, ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE.]

In the Depot are deposited temporarily all the individuals arrested in
the department of the Seine, for any crime whatever, and held for
justice. This general depository receives on an average a hundred and
fifty prisoners a day. Any one arrested by a police agent and conducted
to the _poste_, if not delivered by some friend before the arrival of
the _panier a salade_, is put into this cheerful vehicle, much like a
closed-up omnibus, and carted off to the Depot. There, he is
interrogated, searched, measured by the _service anthropometrique_ of M.
Bertillon, and held for three days. At the end of this period, he is
transferred to some other prison,--to Mazas, before it was demolished,
or to the Sante. The desperate criminals have the privilege of remaining
in the Depot under the eye of the agents de la surete.

Within the walls of the Palais de Justice is included a third place of
detention, the _Souriciere_, in which are confined the accused brought
from the various prisons of the city,--la Sante, Sainte-Pelagie, la
Petite and la Grande-Roquette, Saint-Lazare,--to appear either for their
trial or for their examination before the Juge d'Instruction. The
Souriciere [mouse-trap] is a gloomy and ill-smelling basement, almost
without light and air, and frequently crowded to suffocation, situated
under the chambers of the police correctionnelle. The prisoners are very
often confined here from eleven o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock
in the evening, without being given either food or drink. This abuse is
of long standing, notwithstanding the many protestations that have been
raised against it.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE FACADE OF THE ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE. Engraved,
from a photograph, by E. Tilly.]

Before 1826, the entrance to the Conciergerie was from the grand
court-yard, the Cour du Mai, to the right and at the foot of the grand
stairway. This entrance, with its iron railings, still exists, it now
gives access to the Tribunal de Simple