Debrosse, who built the new Salle in 1622, left a noble and harmonious Renaissance chamber, which, again restored after the fire of 1776, endured until its destruction by fire during the Commune. The present rather frigid hall was completed in 1878 by J.L. Duc, who respected the traditional form and amplitude of the older structures. Nearly opposite the monument to Malesherbes (R.) was the position of the old Pilier des Consultations, where the lawyers were wont to give gratuitous legal help to the poor. The best time to visit the Hall is in the afternoon, when the courts are sitting and when the footsteps of the lawyers and their clients are indeed lost amid the buzz of conversation as they pace up and down. The _Premiere Chambre_ to the L., in the north-west corner of the Hall, is one of the most profoundly interesting in the agglomerated mass of buildings known as the Palais de Justice. This, now somewhat reduced in size, was the old _Grande Chambre_, rebuilt by Louis XII. on the occasion of his marriage with Princess Mary of England, which replaced the earlier bed-chamber of St. Louis. Fra Gioconda's sumptuous decorations of 1502, which won for it the name of the _Chambre doree_, the gold used being, it is said, equal in purity to the famous Dutch golden florin, have been partially restored. Here the kings of France held their Beds of Justice; here the Fronde held its sittings, and here on 15th April, 1654, the young king Louis XIV. strode in, booted and spurred, and is said to have uttered the famous words _l'Etat c'est moi_. Here too, renamed the Salle Egalite, the dread Revolutionary Tribunal held its sittings and condemned 2742 victims; here on 14th October 1793, at half-past four in the morning, appeared Marie Antoinette, "widow of Louis Capet," before her implacable judges and heard her doom; hence the twenty-one Girondins trooped forth to their common fate; here Robespierre, St. Just, and, at length, the unwearied minister of death, Fouquier-Tinville himself, the revolutionary public prosecutor, heard their condemnation. We leave by the Cour du Mai and note, to our L., the restored clock tower, replacing the most ancient and famous clock of Paris. It was renewed by Germain Pilon in 1588 and restored in 1685. Demolished during the Revolution, the face and decoration were again renewed in 1852. The silvery-toned bell that hung here, called the _tocsin_, cast in 1371 and known as the _cloche d'argent_, was accused, together with the bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, before the Commune on 21st August 1792, of having given the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and its immediate destruction was ordered. We turn along the picturesque river facade, and between its two mediaeval towers, de Cesar and d'Argent, enter the Conciergerie.[183] The condemned cell of Marie Antoinette (transformed into a chapel) and the cell of Robespierre are shown, together with the chapel where the Girondins passed their last night and where their