Chapter 26 - Page 2

white capitals; furnished with flat desks and chairs in
the Empire style with green velvet seats, the whole in
mahogany; and paved with white marble relieved by lozenges of
red Saint Anne marble,--this hall, so full of memories, had
been religiously preserved, and after the new hall was built
in 1840, had been used for the private conferences of the
Court of Peers.

It was in this old hall of the Senate that Marshal Ney
was tried. A bar had been put up to the left of the
Chancellor who presided over the Chamber. The Marshal was
behind this bar, with M. Berryer, senior, on his right, and
M. Dupin, the elder, on his left. He stood upon one of the
lozenges in the floor, in which, by a sinister hazard, the
capricious tracing of the marble figured a death's head.
This lozenge has since been taken up and replaced by another.

After February, in view of the riots, soldiers had to be
lodged in the palace. The old Senate-hall was turned into
a guard-house. The desks of the senators of Napoleon and
of the peers of the Restoration were stored in the lumber
rooms, and the curule chairs served as beds for the troops.

Early in June, 1849, I visited the hall of the Chamber
of Peers and found it just as I had left it seventeen months
before, the last time that I sat there, on February 23, 1848.

Everything was in its place. Profound calmness reigned;
the fauteuils were empty and in order. One might have
thought that the Chamber had adjourned ten minutes previously.