The Hotel de Ville in which the Musée Municipal is housed, fronts upon the Champ de Mars, formerly the Champ St. Ladre (campus sancti Lazari) the centre of the life of the town. It was built over in Roman times, as proved by the substructures that have been found, but the land was cleared about the twelfth century. Throughout all the middle ages its convenient position between the Castrum and the Marchaux rendered it a kind of forum, or general public meeting place, and the site of the great fêtes and fairs. During the visit of Charles VIII. to Autun, in 1516, the inhabitants constructed in St. Ladre an immense wooden amphitheatre, with a linen velarium as a protection, quite in the old Roman manner. Here, too, from time immemorial, has been held, and is still held, in September, the great fête de St. Ladre, and cattle fair that draws so many traders to Autun, and destroys for a month the peace of the cathedral city.[65] The wars of religion and the great revolution have brought their quota of victims to the stake, the gallows, or the guillotine, that in turn were set up in the centre of the place. At the north-east corner, opposite the Hotel de Ville, are the best cafés of the town, where, I remember, we learned the latest news of the Portuguese Revolution. Just round the corner, in the Rue de l'Arbalète, is the best Hotel of Autun, "St. Louis et de la Poste," a great rambling building of the early seventeenth century, that, in itself, is a lasting souvenir of great historical events. On the 10th of January, 1802, Napoleon Buonaparte passed through Autun on the way to Lyons. He stayed one night, with the Empress Josephine, at the Hotel St. Louis, where he received the local authorities. Several ladies of the town, eager for a sight of the great man, obtained the hotelier's permission to officiate as waitresses, for that night only. Josephine discovered the ruse at once, and was so amused thereby that she proceeded to play her part in the game with the utmost grace and charm. The hundred days saw Napoleon again at the Hotel St. Louis. He had left Elba on the 26th February, 1815, and arrived at Autun on the 15th of March. According to the account of an eye witness[66] the troops accompanying him were utterly exhausted, and could keep no sort of order; their ranks were broken, and soldiers of all arms were marching pell-mell. Napoleon was surprised and deeply hurt by his reception at Autun. No crowds came out to meet him, and scarcely a cry of "Vive l'Empereur" was heard. The houses were shut, the streets deserted, and only a small company of nobodies, in blouses and sabots, formed his cortège.... No sooner had he descended at the Hotel de la Poste, than he asked for the mayor and the municipal council. They were brought into a balconied room looking on the street.