3-028-560 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Salle des Pas Perdus of the French Corps Legislatif, 1870. 'This salle, where the deputies and their friends, with the more celebrated Parisian and provincial journalists, assemble before the sitting of the Chamber, and which answers to the lobby of our own House of Commons, is named after the hall of the Palais de Justice, in which suitors and their counsel engage in consultation, or wander up and down while awaiting the decisions of the Judges. It is a long, sombre chamber, the walls of which [are] ornamented with imitation pilasters after the style of the first empire...On one side is a row of tall windows, shaded by thick green velvet curtains, facing which are two sets of swing doors forming the entrances to the chamber itself, with a colossal statue of Minerva between them. At each end of the salle is a group of statuary after the antique...[among those visible here are:] M. Thiers; Henri Rochefort; M. Bancel; M. Jules Ferry; Emile Ollivier; Jules Favre; [and] Jules Simon...Scattered about the salle are other deputies and the chief contributors to the Paris press, such as Pelletan, one of the most talented journalists of the day; Picard, the enfant chéri of the Parisians; Clement Duvemois, and Guyot de Montpayroux'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.