CHAPTER X.
The visitor who risks himself in the labyrinth of galleries and stairways in the Palais de Justice, and mounts to the third story in the left wing, will find himself in a long, low-studded gallery, badly lighted by narrow windows, and pierced at short intervals by little doors, like a hall at the ministry or at a lodging-house.
It is a place difficult to view calmly, the imagination makes it appear so dark and dismal.
It needs a Dante to compose an inscription to place above the doors which lead from it.

From morning to night, the flagstones resound under the heavy tread of the gendarmes, who accompany the prisoners.

You can scarcely recall anything but sad figures there.

There are the parents or friends of the accused, the witnesses, the detectives.

In this gallery, far from the sight of men, the judicial curriculum is gone through with.
Each one of the little doors, which has its number painted over it in black, opens into the office of a judge of inquiry.