at witnesses
took the oaths before the revolution; and it is the only one of the six
formerly in this situation that escaped destruction[105]. Round the
apartment are gnomic sentences in letters of gold, reminding judges,
juries, witnesses, and suitors, of their duties. The room itself is said
to be the most beautiful in France for its proportions and quantity of
light. In the _Antiquites Nationales_, is described and figured an
elaborately wrought chimney-piece in the council-chamber, now destroyed,
as are some fine Gothic door-ways, which opened into the chamber. The
ceiling of the apartment called la _seconde Chambre des Enquetes_,
painted by Jouvenet, with a representation of Jupiter hurling his
thunderbolts at Vice, is also unfortunately no more. It fell in, from a
failure in the woodwork of the roof, on the first of April, 1812. It was
among the most highly-esteemed productions of this master, and not the
less remarkable for having been executed with the left hand, after a
paralytic stroke had deprived him of the use of the other.

Millin observes, with much justice, that one of the most remarkable of
the decrees that issued from this palace, was that which authorized the
meetings of the _Conards_, a name given to a confraternity of buffoons,
who, disguised in grotesque dresses, performed farces in the streets on
Shrove Tuesday and other holidays. Nor is it a little indicative of the
taste of the times, that men of rank, character, and respectability
entered into this society, the members of which, amounting to two
thousand five hundred, elected from among themselves a president, whom
they dressed as an abbot[106], with a crozier and mitre, and, placing
him on a car drawn by four horses, led him, thus attired, in great pomp
through the streets; the whole of the party being masked, and
personating not only the allegorical characters of avarice, lust, &c.
but the more tangible ones of pope, king, and emperor, and with them
those of holy writ. The seat of this guild was at Notre Dame de Bonnes
Nouvelles.

[Illustration: Sculpture, representing the Feast of Fools]

In the cathedral itself the more notorious _Procession des Fous_ was
also formerly celebrated, in which, as you know, the ass played the
principal part, and the choir joined in the hymn[107],--

"Orientis partibus
Adventavit Asinus," &c.

These, or similar ceremonies, call them if you please absurdities, or
call them impieties, (you will in n