The back of the president's chair was round, studded with gilt nails. His table was supported by four winged monsters with a single foot, who might have been supposed to have come forth from the Apocalypse to witness the Revolution. They seemed to have been unharnessed from Ezekiel's chariot to drag the tumbril of Samson.
On the president's table stood a huge bell, almost as large as a church-bell, a big copper inkstand, and a parchment portfolio, which contained the record of proceedings. The blood from many a severed head, borne aloft on the end of a pike, has dripped upon this table.
Nine steps led to the tribune. These steps were high, steep, and difficult of ascent; Gensonné once tripped in the act of mounting them. "It is like the staircase of a scaffold!" he said. "It is well to serve your apprenticeship!" cried Carrier.
In the corners of the hall, where the walls seemed rather bare, the architect had placed Roman fasces as ornaments, with the axe bound on the outside.
On the right and left of the tribune pedestals supported two candelabra twelve feet high, each bearing four pairs of Argand lamps. For each public box there was a similar candelabra; and on the pedestals of these candelabra circles were carved, which the people called "guillotine collars."
The seats of the Assembly, rising almost to the cornice of the tribunes, gave the representatives and the people an opportunity to chat with one another.
The exits of the tribunes opened into a labyrinth of corridors, often echoing with wild and tumultuous sounds.
The Convention, outgrowing the limits of the palace, ace, overflowed into the neighboring hotels of Longueville and Coigny. If we may credit Lord Bradford's letter, it was to the Hôtel Coigny that the royal furniture was removed after the 10th of August. It took two entire months to empty the Tuileries.
The committees were lodged in the vicinity of the hall: those of legislation, agriculture, and commerce at the Pavillon-Égalité; those of the navy, the colonies, finance, assignats, and public safety, at the Pavillon Liberté; the Committee of War was at the Pavillon-Unité.
The lodgings of the Committee of General Safety were accessible to those of the Public Safety through a dark corridor, lighted night and day by a lantern,—a passage-way for the spies of all parties, who came and went, talking in whispers.