ers in the eyes of the natives is doubtless the Palais
de Justice, in the shadow of which the statue-guarded hotel, just
mentioned, erects itself; and the gem of the court-house, which has a
prosy modern front, with pillars and a high flight of steps, is the
curious _salle des pas perdus_, or central hall, out of which the
different tribunals open. This is a feature of every French court-house,
and seems the result of a conviction that a palace of justice--the
French deal in much finer names than we--should be in some degree
palatial. The great hall at Poitiers has a long pedigree, as its walls
date back to the twelfth century and its open wooden roof, as well as
the remarkable trio of chimney-pieces at the right end of the room as
you enter, to the fifteenth. The three tall fireplaces, side by side,
with a delicate gallery running along the top of them, constitute the
originality of this ancient chamber, and make one think of the groups
that must formerly have gathered there--of all the wet boot-soles, the
trickling doublets, the stiffened fingers, the rheumatic shanks, that
must have been presented to such an incomparable focus of heat. To-day,
I am afraid, these mighty hearths are for ever cold; justice is probably
administered with the aid of a modern _calorifere_, and the walls of the
palace are perforated with regurgitating tubes. Behind and above the
gallery that surmounts the three fireplaces are high Gothic windows, the
tracery of which masks, in some sort, the chimneys; and in each angle of
this and of the room to the right and left of the trio of chimneys is an
open-work spiral staircase, ascending to--I forget where; perhaps to the
roof of the edifice. The whole side of the _salle_ is very lordly, and
seems to express an unstinted hospitality, to extend the friendliest of
all invitations, to bid the whole world come and get warm. It was the
invention of John, Duke of Berry and Count of Poitou, about 1395. I give
this information on the authority of the Guide-Joanne, from which source
I gather much other curious learning; as, for instance, that it was in
this building, when it had surely a very different front, that Charles
VII. was proclaimed king in 1422; and that here Jeanne Darc was
subjected, in 1429, to the inquisition of sundry doctors and matrons.

The most charming thing at Poitiers is simply the Promenade de
Blossac--a small public garden at one end of the flat top of the hill.
It has a happy look of