ate, is composed of three distinct
buildings, erected at different times, and forming collectively three
sides of a parallelogram, whose fourth side is merely a wall. The court
thus enclosed is spacious. One of these buildings, the front in the
plate, goes by the name of the _Salle des Procureurs_. Its erection was
six years anterior to that of the right-hand building, more properly
called the _Palace of Justice_; and the object in raising it was,
according to the edict of the bailiff upon the occasion, to serve as an
exchange to the merchants, and put a stop to the impious practice of
assembling, even upon feast-days, in the cathedral, for purposes of
business. At a subsequent time, this hall was added to the Palace of
Justice, and there was then built to it a chapel, now destroyed, in
which mass was regularly celebrated twice a year,--upon the anniversary
of the feast of St. Martin, the day of the meeting of parliament, and
upon Ascension-Day. The service on the first of these days, went by the
name of _la messe rouge_, because the members always attended in their
scarlet robes: on the second, and more important occasion, it was called
_la messe de la fierte_, being performed in commemoration of the
deliverance of the prisoner, by virtue of the privilege of St.
Romain.[177]--The exterior of the _Salle des Procureurs_ is
comparatively simple: the most highly decorated part of it is the
gable, which is flanked by two octangular turrets, ornamented with
crocketed pinnacles and flying buttresses. Within, it consists of a
noble hall, one hundred and sixty French feet in length, and fifty in
width, with a coved roof of timber, plain and bold, and destitute either
of the open tie-beams and arches, or the knot-work and cross-timber that
usually adorn the old English roofs. Below the hall is a prison.

The southern building, erected exclusively for the sittings of the
exchequer, is far more sumptuous in its decorations, both without and
within. The lucarne windows may even vie with those in the house in the
Place de la Pucelle.[178] Those below them find almost exact
counterparts in the _chateau_ at Fontaine-le-Henri, also figured in this
work.[179] To use the language of the French critics, this front, which
is more than two hundred feet in width, "est decoree de tout ce que
l'architecture de ce temps-la presente de plus delicat et de plus
riche." The oriel or tower of enriched workmanship, which, by projecting
into the court