rest of Normandy were not likely to
preserve a custom so inhuman as that which the Court of Rouen alone
still exercised.

Amid a scene of intense excitement, as Bretignieres ceased, all the
king's officers in every other court in Normandy stood up, and in
answer to the President, asserted that the law had never been carried
out under their jurisdiction. It remained only for the President St.
Anthot to withdraw with his judges, and, as the Sovereign Senate of
the Province, not merely to interpret law, but to make it. There was a
long pause before they returned into the great hall, this time all
dressed in their red robes bound with ermine. In the solemn silence
that ensued, St. Anthot declared the law null and void from disusage,
restored the children to the inheritance of Guillaume Laurent, and
reinstated them in the house from which their aunt had driven them.

The people rushed into the courtyard carrying the orphans with them,
and while the barristers were congratulating Bretignieres, his little
clients were borne on the shoulders of a cheering mob through the
streets of Rouen to their home; and from that day ceased the cruel law
known as the "Arret du Sang Damne."

It was in the hope, no doubt, that benefits of this nature would be
conferred upon the Province, that the great Cardinal d'Amboise and
Louis XII. made the Echiquier de Normandie perpetual, and gave it the
great Palais de Justice in Rouen for its home. During the English
occupation the damage done to the Chateau de Bouvreuil had
necessitated moving the Easter sessions of the Echiquier to the
archbishop's lodgings in 1423, and on five subsequent occasions the
Court (composed half of English and half of Frenchmen) had to hold its
sittings in that part of the halls (on the Place de la Vieille Tour),
where the weavers usually carried on their commerce. By the time of
Louis XII. the Chateau de Bouvreuil was in better repair, but it was
evident that worthier quarters were needed the moment Cardinal
d'Amboise had obtained the immense advantage of making the courts
perpetual. Its new home was soon decided upon. Already on part of the
Clos des Juifs a large common hall had been erected, in which the
merchants gathered to discuss their business instead of using the nave
of the Cathedral; and in 1499 this hall was made into the west wing of
the new palace, and called first the Salle des Procureurs, and now the
Salle des Pas Perdus; it is the great building on the