of the interior, Chaptal, to
superintend the publication of the great work of the commission on
Egypt, and an engraving machine of his construction materially shortened
this task, which, however, he did not live to see finished. He died at
Paris on the 6th of December 1805. Napoleon had included him in his
first promotions to the Legion of Honour. A bronze statue was erected to
his memory in 1852 at Sees, by public subscription.

CONTEMPT OF COURT, in English law, any disobedience or disrespect to the
authority or privileges of a legislative body, or interference with the
administration of a court of justice.

1. _The High Court of Parliament._ Each of the two houses of Parliament
has by the law and custom of parliament power to protect its freedom,
dignity and authority against insult, disregard or violence by resort to
its own process and not to ordinary courts of law and without having its
process interfered with by those courts. The nature and limits of this
authority to punish for contempt have been the subject of not infrequent
conflict with the courts of law, from the time when Lord Chief Justice
Holt threatened to commit the speaker for attempting to stop the trial
of _Ashby_ v. _White_ (1701), as a breach of privilege, to the cases of
_Burdett_ v. _Abbott_ (1810), _Stockdale_ v. _Hansard_ and _Howard_ v.
_Gosset_ (1842, 1843), and _Bradlaugh_ v. _Gosset_ (1834). It is now the
accepted view that the power of either House to punish contempt is
exceptional and derived from ancient usage, and does not flow from their
being courts of record. Orders for committal by the Commons are
effectual only while the House sits; orders by the Lords may be for a
time specified, in which event prorogation does not operate as a
discharge of the offender. It was at one time considered that the
privilege of committing for contempt was inherent in every deliberative
body invested with authority by the constitution, and consequently that
colonial legislative bodies had by the nature of their functions the
power to commit for contempt. But in _Kielley_ v. _Carson_ (1843; 4
Moore, P.C. 63) it was held that the power belonged to parliament by
ancient usage only and not on the theory above stated, and in each
colony it is necessary to inquire how far the colonial legislature has
acquired, by order in council or charter or from the imperial
legislature, power to punish breach of privilege by imprisonment or
committal for contempt.