M. de Coulmier conducted the house in the most despotic manner; and on the death of the principal surgeon, M. Gastaldi, in 1805, he assumed such powers in the medical department that the School of Medicine was obliged to intervene, when the medical direction was placed in the hands of Dr. Royer-Collard, brother of the celebrated orator of the same name. With all his tyranny, M. de Coulmier had many agreeable ways. Remembering the fury of Saul, calmed by the harp of the youthful David, and the quieting of savage animals by the lyre of Orpheus, the director, carried away by his artistic feeling, determined to apply a similar treatment to the demented ones of Charenton. To carry out his idea he introduced dancing, dramatic performances, fireworks, and even ballets, with the assistance of some of the choregraphic celebrities of the epoch. The imprisoned Marquis de Sade, known by books that no decent person can read, was the organiser of these entertainments, which were attended by all Paris. To the joyous reign of M. de Coulmier succeeded, in 1814, the severe administration of Roulhac du Maupas. No more singing and dancing now! Comedies and ballets gave place to useful reforms, and the substitution of a new medical organisation for the former choregraphic system. Royer-Collard had suppressed the iron girdles, the fetters, the handcuffs, and the collars, by which the ungovernable madmen used to be restrained, and the melancholy ones driven to suicide. Esquirol did away with the human figures in wicker-work, in which violent maniacs used sometimes to be enclosed. The new programme met with the full approbation of the Government. A credit of 2,720,000 francs was voted by the Chamber of Deputies in July, 1838; and soon afterwards M. de Montalivet, then Minister of the Interior, laid with due solemnity the first stone of the new edifice. The memory of this important ceremony is consecrated by an inscription placed beneath the vestibule of the principal building.