THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE While all this was taking place on the left bank of the river, towards noon a man was noticed walking up and down the great Salles des Pas Perdus of the Palace of Justice.

This man, carefully buttoned up in an overcoat, appeared to be attended at a distance by several possible supporters--for certain police enterprises employ assistants whose dubious appearance renders the passers-by uneasy, so much so that they wonder whether they are magistrates or thieves.

The man in the buttoned-up overcoat loitered from door to door, from lobby to lobby, exchanging signs of intelligence with the myrmidons who followed him; then came back to the great Hall, stopping on the way the barristers, solicitors, ushers, clerks, and attendants, and repeating to all in a low voice, so as not to be heard by the passers-by, the same question.

To this question some answered "Yes," others replied "No." And the man set to work again, prowling about the Palace of Justice with the appearance of a bloodhound seeking the trail.
He was a Commissary of the Arsenal Police.
What was he looking for?
The High Court of Justice.
What was the High Court of Justice doing?
It was hiding.
Why?
To sit in Judgment?
Yes and no.
The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morning received from the Prefect Maupas the order to search everywhere for the place where the High Court of Justice might be sitting, if perchance it thought it its duty to meet.

Confusing the High Court with the Council of State, the Commissary of Police had first gone to the Quai d'Orsay.