To the left of the Hôtel de Ville stands the ornate and much gilded Renaissance building known as the =*Maison de l’Ancien Greffe=, originally the municipal record office, but now employed as a police-court. It bears the date 1537, and has been recently restored and profusely covered with gold decoration. Over the main doorway is the Lion of Flanders; on the architrave of the first floor are heads of Counts and Countesses; and the building is surmounted by a figure of Justice, with Moses and Aaron and emblematical statues. Note the Golden Fleece and other symbols. The interior is uninteresting. The E. side of the square is formed by the =Palais de Justice=, which stands on the site of an old =palace of the Counts of Flanders=, presented by Philippe le Beau to the Liberty of Bruges, and employed by them as their town hall of the _Buitenpoorters_, or inhabitants of the district outside the gate, known as the _Franc de Bruges_. The Renaissance building, erected between 1520 and 1608, was burnt down and replaced in the 18th century by the very uninteresting existing building. Parts of the old palace, however, were preserved, one room in which should be visited for the sake of its magnificent =**chimney-piece=. In order to see it, enter the quadrangle: the porter’s room faces you as you enter; inquire there for the key; admission, 50 c. per person. The _concierge_ conducts you to the Court-Room, belonging to the original building. Almost the entire side of the room is occupied by a splendid Renaissance chimney-piece, executed in 1529, after designs by Lancelot Blondeel of Bruges (a painter whose works are frequent in the town), and Guyot de Beaugrant of Malines, for the Council of the Liberty of Bruges, in honour of Charles V., as a memorial of the Treaty of Cambrai, in 1526. (This was the treaty concluded after the battle of Pavia, by which François I^{er} of France was compelled to acknowledge the independence of Flanders. Some of the figures in the background are allusive to the victory.) The lower part, or chimney-piece proper, is of black marble. The upper portion is of carved oak. The marble part has four bas-reliefs in white alabaster by Guyot de Beaugrant, representing the History of Susannah, a mere excuse for the nude: (1) Susannah and the Elders at the Bath; (2) Susannah dragged by the Elders before the Judge; (3) Daniel before the Judge exculpating Susannah; (4) The Stoning of the Elders. The genii at the corners are also by Beaugrant. The whole is in the pagan taste of the Renaissance. The upper portion in oak contains in the centre a statue of Charles V., represented in his capacity as Count of Flanders (as shown by the arms on his cuirass): the other figures represent his descent and the cumulation of sovereignties in his person. On the throne behind Charles (ill seen) are busts of Philippe le Beau, his father, through whom he inherited the Burgundian dominions, and Johanna (the