Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

The hall arranged in 1795 for the Council of the Five Hundred was afterwards occupied by the Legislative Body of the Empire, and again, under the Restoration, by the Chamber of Deputies. In 1814 the Palais Bourbon was, as property, restored to the Prince de Condé, who left the use of it to the State for the benefit of the Chamber. The Government bought from the prince in 1827 a portion of the palace, and purchased the rest from the Duke of Aumale in 1830, the full price paid amounting to 10,500,000 francs. In 1829 the Hall of the Five Hundred was replaced provisionally by a building of wood, in lieu of which the hall as it now exists was soon afterwards constructed. After the Revolution of 1848 a wooden hall was built in the courtyard of the palace to receive the nine hundred deputies of the Constituent Assembly. This hall was invaded by the mob on the 15th of May, 1848, and demolished after the coup d’état of the 2nd of December, 1851.

The Legislative Body of the Empire was now installed in the former Chamber of Deputies until the 4th of September, 1870, when the palace of the Legislative Body was once more invaded by the mob.

The most famous parliamentary debates, however, of the French, and the most important parliamentary trials, have taken place not in the Palais Bourbon but at the Tuileries and at the Luxemburg. Under the reign of Louis Philippe, in the best days of Guizot and Thiers, debates of the greatest interest took place at the Palais Bourbon in the “Chamber of Deputies,” as the French representative body was at that time called; for with each new government the name of the assembly, as of almost every other institution in France, is changed. All public establishments are from time to time Royal, National, or Imperial; and the body which corresponds in France to the House of Commons in England is called, turn by turn, Chamber of Representatives, Chamber of Deputies, or Legislative Body. No country, indeed, has had so many legislative and governing assemblies as France, which until the Revolution was as nearly as possible an absolute monarchy. The States-General, under the ancient régime, were convoked from time to time by the king, but had no real power. The most that can be said in their favour is that they at least preserved among the people the idea of popular representation. In 1788, the year before the Revolution, there was a general demand for a convocation of the States-General, to which an unexpected reply was made by the calling together of Constituent and Legislative Assemblies. These bodies both admitted the royal veto as a bar upon their decisions. But the Convention, the Revolution having now been accomplished, recognised no counterbalancing power, no control of any kind. It governed the country through its commissaries and its committees.

The constitution of the year 3 of the Republic (1792) divided the legislative power into two assemblies, the Council of the Five Hundred and the Council of the Elders. To the former belonged the initiative, to the latter the final decision.[{232}]

Dissatisfied with the working of these two bodies, Bonaparte introduced a parliamentary reform of the most remarkable kind. According to his constitution of the year 1797, the Legislative Body was to be divided into two assemblies, one of which was to discuss the laws submitted to it by the Government, the other to accept the decisions in the upper chamber without debate and simply by way of registration. After the fall of Napoleon the restored monarchy, obliged by the circumstances of the time to tolerate the existence of a parliament, formed the Chamber of Representatives, which, under the government of Louis Philippe, was succeeded by the Chamber of Deputies, destined to play an important part in the political history of the country. Under the Second Empire the governmental forms of the First Empire were as much as possible introduced. The Legislative Body and the Senate came now once more into existence, the former being empowered to discuss the laws proposed by the Government, the latter to prevent their promulgation should they, under the influence of the debates, have taken a form which the Government might consider objectionable. Under the Third Republic the French chambers have resumed something of the importance they possessed under Louis Philippe. Their powers, indeed, have been increased, though they contain no such distinguished men as those which gave character and brilliancy to the Chamber of Deputies between the years 1830 and 1848.

FAÇADE OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES ON PLACE DU PALAIS BOURBON.

The assembly of the States-General held at Versailles in May, 1789, preceded by three months the taking of the Bastille; and it was in this assembly that the task-work of the peasants—their serfdom, that is to say—was abolished; that obnoxious feudal rights of various kinds were suppressed; and that religious liberty, individual liberty, liberty of the press, and general equality before the law were proclaimed.

The Bastille was taken while the assembly was in full deliberation, and this event gave to its discussions and decisions a more liberal, more revolutionary turn than ever.