Paris, From the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 2

by William Walton

The Palais de Justice, in which this august tribunal sits, shelters also the Cour d'Assises, the buildings of the Cour d'Appel, the prisons of the Conciergerie and of the Dépôt, the apartments devoted to the service of the Parquet, of the Juges d'Instruction, the smaller ones belonging to the library and to the Salle du Conseil des Avocats, etc., and encloses jealously the beautiful Sainte-Chapelle, the slender spire of which and the great angel rise so incongruously over these secular buildings devoted to windy and dusty Law.

Through the great gilded gates which from the Boulevard du Palais lead into the Cour du Mai the visitor enters this ancient building, now almost completely rebuilt by the restorations which have been going on since 1840. Turning to the right, he passes into the great Salle des Pas-Perdus, and from that into the long Galerie des Prisonniers, which traverses the whole length of the Palais from east to west, and which was originally constructed by Philippe le Bel. This gallery gives access to the halls of audiences of the three Chambres of the Cour de Cassation and the Galerie Saint-Louis. A curious detail of municipal administration is connected with this supreme court. Though from an architectural point of view it is undoubtedly an integral part of the Palais de Justice, it is considered from an administrative point of view as a separate construction, appertaining to the direction of civil edifices, having its separate budget for construction and maintenance and its special architect. This variety of budgets and services extends throughout the building, the different institutions and tribunals under its roofs being considered as belonging to different branches of the administration. The State alone has charge of that portion of the building occupied by the Cour de Cassation; that occupied by the Cour d'Appel comes under the authority of the Minister of the Interior, since the costs of the maintenance of this court are supplied by a group of the departments of the nation. The department of the Seine and the City of Paris have each their portion in the costs of construction and of maintenance of the building, that of the city being by no means the lightest. The Galerie des Prisonniers, for example, on the ground-floor appertains both to the City of Paris and to the State, since on one side it communicates with the Cour de Cassation; the basement, which is a dependency of the Dépôt and of the Conciergerie, belongs both to the city and to the department of the Seine, and the upper story is equally divided in its allegiance. So that, if there is a question of replacing a tile in the pavement, of repairing a ceiling, or of repainting a wall, the architect is obliged to divide the cost, to a centime, between the State, the Minister of the Interior, 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 Délibérations, 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 interminable argumentations of authors who have produced sapient dissertations upon the uttermost juridical disputation.—It is the triumph of the ancient classic controversy, for discussions are still held in the supreme court pro et contrà, to conclude in baralipton, in the same manner as in the ancient Sorbonne;—Latin alone is wanting to the festival.

"Pleadings, indeed, have but little importance before the Cour de Cassation: it is the mémoire, laboriously and lengthily composed by the avocat, which is the pièce de résistance in every case, because it sets forth a complete exposé of the affair and the minute discussion of each one of the juridical problems which it brings up, with infinite divisions and subdivisions. The monotonous reading of the Conseiller-rapporteur being finished, the avocat proceeds to develop his mémoire, and the Avocat général states his conclusions; then, if the question present only mediocre juridical interest, the conseillers gather in a circle in the centre of the Salle d'Audience to discuss, adopt, or reject the judgment prepared in advance by the Rapporteur;—this is what is called faire le rondeau. And there may be seen, in the unshaded light of the hall, under the ceiling in gilded oak of the Chambre Civile, these gray or white heads agitating themselves, and Passion (passion inspired by abstract law!) reappears. The apathy, the somnolence of a few minutes ago, have disappeared, and these hoary old men find again, for the moment, an ardor which seemed to have been forever laid to sleep....

"Silence, a silence which is scarcely troubled by the sound of the discreet footfalls of the rare promenaders, an icy chill, are the inalienable characteristics of the locality in which sits the first court of the justice of France. Respect it, do as do those who frequent it willingly or because of the necessities of the daily task, and issue from these deserted galleries, speaking in an undertone, and with the finger upon the lips, in order not to trouble the repose of its inhabitants."

The Cour des Comptes, which sits in the Palais-Royal, ranks immediately after the Cour de Cassation, and enjoys the same prerogatives. It is the modern representative of the Chambres des Comptes of the old monarchy and of the Commission de Comptabilité Nationale which replaced these Chambres at the period of the Revolution. It was created by a law of September 16, 1807, and constitutes at once an administrative tribunal charged with the verification and examination of certain financial accounts of the administration and an institution of the body-politic intended, by its control over the financial measures of the administration and other administrative accounts which it is not called upon to examine, to advise the executive and legislative powers. It may therefore be considered as the superintendent of the public fortune and of its financial measures.

It consists of a first President, three Presidents of Chambres, eighteen Conseillers Maîtres, twenty-four Conseillers Référendaires of the first class, sixty of the second class, a Procureur général, fifteen Auditeurs of the first class, ten of the second class, a Greffier en chef, etc. The salaries of these officials are about the same as those of the Cour de Cassation. The first President has the supreme direction of all the deliberations of the court, as well as of the police and general surveillance. The court is divided into three Chambres, having each a President and six Conseillers Maîtres who alone have a voice in the deliberations and constitute, themselves, the members of the administrative tribunal sitting in judgment. The deliberations are not public. The Presidents and Conseillers cannot be removed, and are placed on the retired list, the Presidents and Maîtres at seventy-five years of age, and the Référendaires at seventy years. The court addresses an annual report to the chief of the State, in which it sets forth those matters which, in the course of its examinations, have seemed to it worthy of the attention of the government, and advocates those reforms and ameliorations in the administration of the public finances which have been suggested to it by its consideration of the various facts and enactments.