corations and
furnishings are the Salon des Huissiers, the Salle des Gardes, the
Escalier d'Apollon, the Salle de Don Quichotte--which contains a series
of designs destined to have served for a series of tapestries intended
to depict scenes in the life of the windmill knight--the Galerie des
Fetes, the Galerie des Cerfs, the Salle Coypel, the Salle des Stucs and
the Salon des Fleurs, through which latter one approaches the royal
apartments.

In the sixteenth century, or, more exactly, between 1502 and 1510, was
constructed Compiegne's handsome Hotel de Ville, one of the most
delightful architectural mixtures of Gothic and Renaissance extant. It
is an architectural monument of the same class as the Palais de Justice
at Rouen or the Hotel Cluny at Paris. Its frontispiece is marvellous,
the _rez-de-chaussee_ less gracious than the rest perhaps, but with the
first story blooming forth as a gem of magnificent proportions and
setting. Between the four windows of this first story are posed
statuesque effigies of Charles VII, Jeanne d'Arc, Saint Remy and Louis
IX. In the centre, in a niche, is an equestrian statue of Louis XII, who
reigned when this monument was being built. A _balustrade a jour_
finishes off this story, which, in turn, is overhung with a high, peaked
gable, and above rise the belfry and its spire, of which the great clock
dates from 1303, though only put into place in 1536. The only false note
is sounded by the two insignificant, cold and unlovely wings which flank
the main structure on either side.

It is a sixteenth century construction unrivalled of its kind in all
France, more like a Belgian town-hall belfry than anything elsewhere to
be seen outside Flanders, but it is not of the low Spanish-Renaissance
order as are so many of the imposing edifices of occidental and oriental
Flanders. It is a blend of Gothic and Renaissance, and, what is still
more rare, the best of Gothic and the best of Renaissance. Above its
facade is a civic belfry, flanked by two slender towers. Within the
portal-vestibule rises a monumental stairway which must have been the
inspiration of many a builder of modern opera-houses.

Opposite the Hotel Dieu is the poor, rent relic of the Tour de Jeanne
d'Arc, originally a cylindrical donjon of the twelfth century, wherein
"La Pucelle" was imprisoned in 1430.

Between the palace and the river are to be seen many vestiges of the
mediaeval ramparts of the town, and here and there a well-