Adjoining the Salle du Peuple is a smaller chamber, the Salle des Échevins, or the Council Chamber of the ancient commune. Here there is another stone fireplace slightly inferior to the one in the larger hall, but resembling it in general design. The statues here represent the Virgin Mary in the centre, with Justice and Hope on either side. The chief masterpiece in this room, however, is the wooden doorway carved by Van der Schelden, who was instructed by the burghers to make it as beautiful as possible. How faithfully the artist performed his task the result shows. Around its top stand wooden cupids surmounting a richly carved entablature containing the arms of Charles V in the centre with those of Flanders and of Audenaerde on either side. The first is supported by two griffins, the second by two lions and the last by two savages. The panels of the door itself and of the sidewalls forming the complete portal are richly carved, each design being different from all the others. For this bit of wood-carving the frugal burghers paid the sum of one thousand, eighteen livres parisis, or nine hundred and twenty-three francs--something over $175--and the artist furnished the wood! Formerly the walls of this room were decorated with tapestries of Audenaerde, but at the time of Louis XIV these were all removed and taken to Paris. Most of the tapestries in the town overlooked by le Grande Monarque were subsequently taken away by Napoleon, so that the Hotel de Ville of the city that gave these treasures to the world, and that should possess the finest collection of them, has been stripped completely bare. In their stead the Council Chamber at present contains a collection of paintings of no special artistic merit but of great historical interest. There is, of course, a portrait of Charles V, wearing the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. A portrait of Louis XIV on horseback and bearing a marshal's baton, by Philippe de Champaigne, forms a poor substitute for the tapestries filched by His Majesty. This collection also comprises several portraits of personages famous in later Flemish history. Of these the most noteworthy is that of Margaret of Parma, which hangs close to that of her father, the Emperor.