There is nothing else in the hall which is not modern, even its form, which has been changed for the convenience of the meetings which take place here.
The picture is one of very exciting interest, and is very well executed; it is the work of M.Omer Chartel--a native, I believe, of La Rochelle--and is a most appropriate present to the town in which the circumstances it depicts took place.
Jean Guiton was mayor of La Rochelle at the time when, in 1628, Louis XIII., or rather the Cardinal de Richelieu, besieged the Protestants in the town.

His mysterious disappearance, the uncertainty attached to his fate, the suspicions of his motives,--notwithstanding the grandeur of his character, and the determination of his resistance,--altogether invest him with singular interest, and every particular of his history which can be collected must be eagerly sought for.
He was appointed to the office of chief-magistrate at a moment of great danger; and on the occasion made this celebrated speech: "Fellow-citizens, I accept the honour you design me, on this condition only, that I shall have a right to pierce with this sword the heart of him who shall be base enough to speak the words of peace, or who shall dare to talk of submission.

Should I be cowardly enough to do so, let my blood expiate my crime, and let the meanest citizen be my executioner: the sacred love of his country will exculpate him for the act.

Meantime let this poniard remain upon the council-table, an object of terror to the craven and betrayer." The siege went on, and the unfortunate Rochellois were reduced to the last extremity; famine and misery brought them to the lowest ebb of human suffering; and, in spite of their valour and high resolves, it was evident that nothing but submission could save them from the most horrible fate.

Their implacable enemy had wound his coils around their town, the fatal _digue_, thrown up with labour, incredible and impossible to all but hate, prevented any succours reaching them; there it lay, circling their port like a huge constrictor waiting patiently for its exhausted prey,--there was no remedy, and the chief persons of the town repaired in a body to Guiton to represent the state of the inhabitants and to propose a surrender.