Palais de Justice

“ A few lights glimmered dimly from the street lamps as the queen entered the carriage, guarded by soldiers, and was conveyed through the somber streets to her last earthly abode. The prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of the Palais de Justice. More damp, dark, gloomy dens of stone and iron the imagination can not conceive. ”

“ The Palais de Justice, which is an ancient building, has a fine old gothic arcade, and on the other side, directly upon the city-wall, a picturesque, irregular rear, with a row of painted windows, through which, from the salle d'audience, the judge on the bench and the prisoner in the dock may enjoy a prospect, admonitory, inspiring, or depressing, as the case may be, of the expanded country. ”

“ And to crown everything, when I came away from the Palais de Justice, I met some friends outside who gave me a long list of people who had been condemned and only found to be innocent when it was too late. ”

“ Men, women, and even children swarmed round the principal entrances of the Palais de Justice, along the bank of the river as far as the Pont au Change, and up towards the Luxembourg Palace, now transformed into the prison, to which the condemned would no doubt be conveyed. ”

“ Long, narrow, and low of ceiling, having on the one side a row of windows looking on to a small courtyard, and on the other a range of doors, each with a number on its central panel, thus reminding one of some corridor in a second-rate hotel, such is the Galerie d’Instruction at the Palais de Justice whereby admittance is gained into the various rooms occupied by the investigating magistrates. Even in the daytime, when it is thronged with prisoners, witnesses, and guards, it is a sad and gloomy place. ”

“ There is but one drawback to the pleasure of having met such a man—and this is the fear that in losing sight of Paris we may lose sight of him also.
The Palais de Justice is from its extent alone a very noble building; but its high antiquity, and 107 its connexion with so many points and periods of history, render it one of the most interesting buildings imaginable. We entered all the courts, some of which appeared to be in full activity. They are in general large and handsome. ”

“ The parliament considered Law to be the author of all the evil, and some of the councillors, in the virulence of their enmity, proposed that he should be brought to trial, and, if found guilty, be hung at the gates of the Palais de Justice. ”

“ The feudal court of the king had the double character of a council and of a court of justice; with the growth of the royal authority the functions of this court naturally increased, and it became necessary to divide them,—there was accordingly constituted the political court, or grand council, and the judicial court, or Parlement. Philippe le Bel, who was far more of an innovator than even Saint-Louis, first gave the latter a distinct organization. It was to sit twice a year at Paris, two months at a time, in the Palais de la Cité, which, in 1303, took the name of the Palais de Justice. ”

“ The thing that most surprises the visitor who goes over the prison is that, at every moment, he will meet prisoners without a guard of any kind, who seem to move about as though they were absolutely free. In reality, in order to go from one point to another — for instance, from their cell to the van waiting in the yard to take them to the Palais de Justice for the magistrate's examination — they pass along straight lines each of which ends in a door that is opened to them by a warder. ”

“ Any description of the Palais de Justice would be incomplete without due mention of these preventive officials, as they may be called, the most powerful adjuncts of the law; for though it must be owned that the force of circumstances has abrogated the ancient pomp and wealth of justice, it has materially gained in many ways. In Paris especially its machinery is admirably perfect.
Monsieur de Granville had sent his secretary, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, to attend Lucien's funeral ”

“ Condemnations pronounced in advance are more likely to be the result. All these groups seem to the passing and thoughtful observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in concert all sorts of dark edifices.
This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace of justice. A double-leaved door, which was closed at that moment, separated it from the large apartment where the court was sitting.
The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer whom he met. ”

“ Close by are the public prosecutor's offices, the attorney's room and library, the chambers of the attorney-general, and those of the public prosecutor's deputies. All these purlieus, to use a generic term, communicate by narrow spiral stairs and the dark passages, which are a disgrace to the architecture not of Paris only, but of all France. The interior arrangement of the sovereign court of justice outdoes our prisons in all that is most hideous. ”

“ If architecture at all, an Oriental fantasia, utterly unreal! the splendour of the Hall of Justice, of the Abencerrages, which follows on either side, with long vistas of many-domed halls opening into other patios, where violets, roses, and orange-trees blaze in the light, entered by portals glowing with brilliant mosaics, a low arch, specially pointed out to him by a noble Moor, more courteous than the rest, in the Hall of Justice, as leading to the place of execution. ”

“ They build their great law court building (the architecture ecclesiastical) so as to provide an entrance hall of imposing proportions which they use once a year; and to get this fine hall they have to make their court rooms, which they must use all the time, dark and small and inaccessible. They think as much of that once-a-year ceremony of opening their courts as they think of the even justice that they dispense; somehow they feel that the justice depends on the ceremony. ”

“ The gratings are every day carefully examined by jailers, whose herculean proportions and cold pitiless expression prove them to have been chosen to reign over their subjects for their superior activity and intelligence. The court-yard of this quarter is enclosed by enormous walls, over which the sun glances obliquely, when it deigns to penetrate into this gulf of moral and physical deformity. On this paved yard are to be seen, -- pacing to and fro from morning till night, pale, careworn, and haggard, like so many shadows, -- the men whom justice holds beneath the steel she is sharpening. ”

“ The white marble palaces of the higher courts wherein broad stairways, paneled mahogany, stained glass, and soft noiseless carpets giving an air of repose and refined culture, are not altogether consistent with the modern spirit. The man on the street does not understand whether the marble statues on the roof are symbols of justice or late presidents of the United States. ”

“ We have brought them back with us, and other people are [Pg 303] munching food, too, in the dust, the heat, the squalor of this room from which the majesty of justice has departed with the red robed tribunal, the jury, and the prisoner. There is a hubbub of excited talk and much discussion. Municipal guards forget to keep order and chat with us and with the barristers of the probabilities and possibilities of the verdict. Every now and then there is a hubbub of excitement and a sudden deathly stillness. The little door, beyond which we can see those red and grey carpeted stairs, has opened. ”

“ From seven o'clock in the morning a crowd was stationed at the iron gates, and an hour before the trial commenced the hall was full of the privileged. Before the entrance of the magistrates, and indeed frequently afterwards, a court of justice, on days when some especial trial is to take place, resembles a drawing-room where many persons recognize each other and converse if they can do so without losing their seats ”

“ It is difficult to form an idea of the enormous throng that blocked all the approaches to the Palace of Justice the day the trial opened, and continued to crowd them during the twelve days that the trial lasted, which was as interesting to Royalists as to Republicans. The most fashionable people of Paris made a point of being present. ”

“ When the religious ceremonies were concluded the court ascended to the stately palace of the Alhambra and entered by the great Gate of Justice. The halls lately occupied by turbaned infidels now rustled with stately dames and Christian courtiers, who wandered with eager curiosity over this far-famed palace, admiring its verdant courts and gushing fountains, its halls decorated with elegant arabesques and storied with inscriptions, and the splendor of its gilded and brilliantly painted ceilings. ”

“ The jury do not know what a slap in the face they give to popular authority, to administrative and judicial functionaries, when they acquit a prisoner. And so, in my opinion, it is hardly possible that an innocent man should ever find himself at the bar of an Assize Court in Paris—I say nothing of other seats of justice. ”

“ Here, as everywhere when men are thrown together, here, as at school even, force, physical and moral, wins the day. Here, then, as on the hulks, crime stamps the man’s rank. Those whose head is doomed are the aristocracy. The prison-yard, as may be supposed, is a school of criminal law, which is far better learned there than at the Hall on the Place du Pantheon.
A never-failing pleasantry is to rehearse the drama of the Assize Court; to elect a president, a jury, a public prosecutor, a counsel, and to go through the whole trial. This hideous farce is played before almost every great trial. ”

“ The scene opens in Westminster Hall, the vast building erected for the judicial courts of the realm by William the Second. There is a troop of horse in the courtyard, and armed men guard the doors. Now a procession enters, and as the doors open to admit it you hear loud shouts of “Justice! justice!” from the mob in the courtyard. At the head of the procession are officers bearing the mace and the sword of state; behind them, in black robes, you see John Bradshaw, and with him a number of members of Parliament. ”

“ The Capitol, to which we climbed by very broad steps, is built about a square court, at the right hand of which, going up from Campo Vaccino, gushes a plentiful stream from the statue of Tiber, in porphyry, very antique, and another representing Rome; but, above all, is the admirable figure of Marforius, casting water into a most ample concha. The front of this court is crowned with an excellent fabric containing the Courts of Justice, and where the Criminal Notary sits, and others. In one of the halls they show the statues of Gregory XIII. and Paul III., with several others. ”

“ The official name for that pile of stone and brick is "The Criminal Courts Building." But the people persist in calling it "The Tombs." The prison dated from the middle of the century and a hodge-podge of official architecture had been added, decade by decade, as the political bosses needed money. It housed the district attorney's office, the "police court," "special sessions" for misdemeanants, and "general sessions" for felons. One could study our whole penal practice in that building. ”

“ After I got up-stairs I couldn't sleep. At about ten o'clock I heard the door-bell ring, then long heavy steps going down the hall, and the shutting of a door which I guessed to be the door of the study. That was odd; father seldom had visitors so late. I tossed and tossed. I kept trying to picture the court room. I saw it as a vast place, with a cold chilly light, like the hall of the prison, filled with a surging mob of people; serried rows of lawyers all in white wigs—the memory of some English pictures—and a terrible judge in a black gown, calling out my name. ”

“ CHARLES DICKENS Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack: while gloomy suites of apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old state and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither went there to see state-rooms, nor soldiers’ quarters, nor a common jail, though we dropped some money into a prisoners’ box outside, whilst the prisoners themselves, looked through the iron bars, high up, and watched us eagerly. ”

“ The great Hall of Justice, an edifice of which the Bivouackers are exceedingly proud, is constructed in the same recumbent style, the architect, with a view to protect himself from the imputation of believing that the firmament was within reach of his hand, having taken the precaution to run up a wooden finger-board from the centre of the building, which points to the place where, according to the notions of all other people, the ridge of the roof itself should have been raised. ”

“ It is not until an artist is dead that his paintings are held worthy of being transported to that national Walhalla of pictorial heroes, the Louvre.{131}
CHAPTER XX.
THE PRISONS OF PARIS. La Santé—La Roquette—The Conciergerie—The Mazas—Sainte-Pélagie—Saint-Lazare—Prison Regulations.
THE Luxemburg, though only from time to time (and usually at intervals of several years) transformed into a High Court of Justice, has a prison permanently attached to it. The apartments reserved for prisoners of state have, however, nothing in common with the ordinary prisons of Paris. ”

“ It is certain that the Court is plunged in shame and mortification at the exposure, that the Palace is full of bickerings and heart-burning, while the whole proceeding is looked upon by society at large as to the last degree disgusting and disgraceful. ”