Among the other remarkable halls contained in the Palais Bourbon as it at present exists, the most important is the one in which, under the name now of Chamber of Deputies, now of Legislative Body, the French Parliament has held its sittings. The hall arranged in 1795 for the Council of the Five Hundred was afterwards occupied by the Legislative Body of the Empire, and again, under the Restoration, by the Chamber of Deputies. In 1814 the Palais Bourbon was, as property, restored to the Prince de Condé, who left the use of it to the State for the benefit of the Chamber. The Government bought from the prince in 1827 a portion of the palace, and purchased the rest from the Duke of Aumale in 1830, the full price paid amounting to 10,500,000 francs. In 1829 the Hall of the Five Hundred was replaced provisionally by a building of wood, in lieu of which the hall as it now exists was soon afterwards constructed. After the Revolution of 1848 a wooden hall was built in the courtyard of the palace to receive the nine hundred deputies of the Constituent Assembly. This hall was invaded by the mob on the 15th of May, 1848, and demolished after the _coup d’état_ of the 2nd of December, 1851. The Legislative Body of the Empire was now installed in the former Chamber of Deputies until the 4th of September, 1870, when the palace of the Legislative Body was once more invaded by the mob. The most famous parliamentary debates, however, of the French, and the most important parliamentary trials, have taken place not in the Palais Bourbon but at the Tuileries and at the Luxemburg. Under the reign of Louis Philippe, in the best days of Guizot and Thiers, debates of the greatest interest took place at the Palais Bourbon in the “Chamber of Deputies,” as the French representative body was at that time called; for with each new government the name of the assembly, as of almost every other institution in France, is changed. All public establishments are from time to time Royal, National, or Imperial; and the body which corresponds in France to the House of Commons in England is called, turn by turn, Chamber of Representatives, Chamber of Deputies, or Legislative Body. No country, indeed, has had so many legislative and governing assemblies as France, which until the Revolution was as nearly as possible an absolute monarchy. The States-General, under the ancient régime, were convoked from time to time by the king, but had no real power. The most that can be said in their favour is that they at least preserved among the people the idea of popular representation. In 1788, the year before the Revolution, there was a general demand for a convocation of the States-General, to which an unexpected reply was made by the calling together of Constituent and Legislative Assemblies. These bodies both admitted the royal veto as a bar upon their decisions. But the Convention, the Revolution having now been accomplished, recognised no counterbalancing power, no control of any kind.