We return to the Cour du Mai: on the R., before we ascend the great stairway, we look down on the nine steps leading from the Vestibule (now a Cafe Restaurant) of the Conciergerie, up which those doomed to the guillotine ascended to the fatal tumbrils awaiting them in the courtyard. We ascend to the Galerie Marchande: the stairway, rebuilt after the fire of 1776, replaced the old flight of stairs at whose feet heralds proclaimed treaties of peace and tournaments, criminals were branded, and books condemned by the Parlement, burned. Here Pantagruel loved to stand and cut the stirrup-straps of the fat councillors' mules, and see the _gros sufle de conseiller_ fall flat when he tried to mount; and here the clercs of the Basoche planted the annual May-tree, brought from the forest of Bondy, with much playing of drums and trumpets and elaborate ceremony. The Galerie Marchande, formerly known as the Galerie Merciere, was once a busy and fashionable bazaar, where lines of shops displayed fans, shoes, slippers and other dainty articles of feminine artillery. The further galleries were also invaded by the traders, who were only finally evicted in 1842. We turn R. and enter the Grande Salle or, as it is now known, the Salle des Pas Perdus. It, too, was once a busy mart, booksellers especially predominating, most of whom had stations there, much as we see them to-day, round the Odeon Theatre. Verard's address was--"At the image of St. John the Evangelist, before Notre Dame de Paris, and at the first pillar in the Grande Salle of the Palais de Justice, before the chapelle where they sing the mass for Messieurs of the Parlement." Gilles Couteau's address was at "The Two Archers in the Rue de la Juiverie and at the third pillar at the Palais." Every pillar had its bookseller's shop. In 1618 the great chamber, the finest of its kind in Europe, with its rich stained glass, its double vaultings resplendent with blue and gold, was gutted by fire, and its long line of statues of the kings of France, from Pharamond to Henry IV.--the _rois faineants_ with pendent arms and lowered eyes, the valiant warrior kings with heads and arms erect--disappeared for ever. This was the hall where the clercs of the Basoche performed their _farces_, _sottises_ and _moralites_, and where Victor Hugo has placed the scene of the famous performance of the _moralite_, composed by Pierre Gringoire,[182] so vividly described in the opening chapters of _Notre Dame_. [Footnote 182: Notes exist of payments in 1502, 1505 to Pierre Gringoire, _histrion et facteur_ for the mysteries--well and honestly performed--at the entries of Madame la reine, before the portail of the Chatelet.]