Courthouse (Parliament of Burgundy)

The full story

As a sovereign court, the Parliament of Burgundy tried cases, but according to the City it also held legislative powers. Its magistrates formed a nobility of the robe: nicknamed the “robins”, they held their offices in an almost hereditary way and bought, altered or built many of the town-centre mansions. One of them, President Odinet Godran, left his fortune to the Jesuits in 1581 to found a college, whose buildings have housed the municipal library since 1909.

The palace grew through successive additions. People entered through a domed porch built in the second half of the 16th century, which led to the Salle Saint-Louis, known as the great hall, onto which a chapel opens. The Golden Chamber, whose coffered ceiling dates from 1522, was mainly used for solemn hearings, while ordinary cases were heard in the Great Chamber. A prison, the conciergerie, connected directly with the palace.

Hugues Sambin, born in Gray around 1520 and died in Dijon in 1601, was at once a joiner, draughtsman, engraver, engineer and architect. The Salle Saint-Louis is partly his work, as is the screen of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. In 1583 he made the walnut Scrin door, which closed the archives room: decorated with symbols of justice and the tools of the scribe’s trade, it is now displayed in room 19 of the Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Abolished during the Revolution, the Parliament was not replaced. Around 1811 the assize court moved into the Golden Chamber, soon joined by the court of appeal. From 1855 the architect Jean-Philippe Suisse restored the whole complex. Opposite the Golden Chamber he built an assize courtroom to match it, since the same judges dealt with both civil and criminal cases. The great hall then received Gothic-style decoration, fashionable at the time, but kept its volume; the architect moved the chapel and its railing to the centre of the end wall and added a rose window there.

The 1926 listing protects in particular the great hall with its porch and front steps, the assize courtroom, the civil chamber and the former library. Long closed to the public, the recently restored building can now be visited on tours run by the tourist office. To picture it in the 17th century, look at a print by Israël Silvestre held by the municipal library.