The palace, in its present state, is composed of three distinct buildings, erected at different times, and forming collectively three sides of a parallelogram, whose fourth side is merely a wall. The court thus enclosed is spacious. One of these buildings, the front in the plate, goes by the name of the _Salle des Procureurs_. Its erection was six years anterior to that of the right-hand building, more properly called the _Palace of Justice_; and the object in raising it was, according to the edict of the bailiff upon the occasion, to serve as an exchange to the merchants, and put a stop to the impious practice of assembling, even upon feast-days, in the cathedral, for purposes of business. At a subsequent time, this hall was added to the Palace of Justice, and there was then built to it a chapel, now destroyed, in which mass was regularly celebrated twice a year,--upon the anniversary of the feast of St. Martin, the day of the meeting of parliament, and upon Ascension-Day. The service on the first of these days, went by the name of _la messe rouge_, because the members always attended in their scarlet robes: on the second, and more important occasion, it was called _la messe de la fierte_, being performed in commemoration of the deliverance of the prisoner, by virtue of the privilege of St. Romain.[177]--The exterior of the _Salle des Procureurs_ is comparatively simple: the most highly decorated part of it is the gable, which is flanked by two octangular turrets, ornamented with crocketed pinnacles and flying buttresses. Within, it consists of a noble hall, one hundred and sixty French feet in length, and fifty in width, with a coved roof of timber, plain and bold, and destitute either of the open tie-beams and arches, or the knot-work and cross-timber that usually adorn the old English roofs. Below the hall is a prison.