2-969-893 - /Heritage Images

Hall of the Conferences, Hotel of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, at Paris, 1856. Scene of '...the conclusion of an armistice between the belligerent parties [in the Crimean War]...which armistice, however, is not to extend to such naval operations as the Western Powers may deem necessary for the maintenance of their blockade on the Russian ports...The hall of the Ambassadors...is hung with crimson satin, and decorated with two magnificent portraits of the Emperor and Empress...The Conference table occupies the middle of the hall, and twelve chairs are ranged round it. A second table is for the use of the secretary to the Conferences, and a third for the Plenipotentiaries, when any one of them may require to write apart...It was remarked as curious that the Russian Plenipotentiaries were so placed that the eyes of the portrait of Napoleon III...seem directly fixed upon them'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.