Foulon, Intendant du Commerce, suffered here
soon afterward, hung from the cords by which a lamp was suspended, whence
the expression, which soon resounded in many a popular refrain, of "put
the aristocrats to the lantern."
* * * * *
Two parasite buildings, the Conciergerie, and the Prefecture of Police,
are now annexed to the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie takes its name
from the house of the concierge in the time of the royal residence here,
who had a right to two chickens a day and to the cinders and ashes of the
king's chimney.
It has always been a prison, and it was here that the Comte d'Armagnac was
murdered, June 12, 1418. Here was made, below the level of the Seine, the
prison called La Souriciere, from the rats which had the reputation of
eating the prisoners alive. The present Conciergerie occupies the lower
story of the right wing of the existing Palais de Justice, and extends
along the Quai de l'Horloge, as far as the towers of Montgomery and Cesar.
It has an entrance on the quay, before which the guillotine-carts received
the victims of the Reign of Terror, and another to the right of the great
staircase in the Cour d'Honneur.
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