The administrative commission of the Legislative Body announced that the ambassador of the Cisalpine Republic had sent a present of three hundred medals, struck on occasion of the peace and of the _forum Bonaparte_, which medals were distributed to the members.
The assembly the broke up, the next sitting being appointed for the following day at noon.
Lord Cornwallis and suite sat in the box allotted to Foreign Ministers, facing the President, as did the Marquis de Lucchesini, the Prussian ambassador, and some others. A small box is likewise appropriated to reporters, who take down the proceedings. The members were all habited in their appointed dress, which consists of a dark blue coat embroidered with gold, blue pantaloons and white waistcoat, also embroidered, a tricoloured silk sash, worn above the coat, and ornamented with a rich gold fringe. They wore a plain cocked hat, with the national cockade, and short boots. This meeting of legislators, all in the same dress, undoubtedly presents a more imposing spectacle than such a variegated assemblage as is sometimes to be seen in our House of Commons.
By the present constitution, you will see that no new law can be promulgated, unless decreed by the Legislative Body.
The votes in this assembly being taken by ballot, and the laws being enacted without any discussion, on the part of its members, on the plans debated before it by the orators of the Tribunate and of the government, it necessarily follows that the sittings present far less interest to strangers, than would result from an animated delivery of the opinion of a few leading orators.
Before I take leave of this palace, I must introduce you into the suite of rooms formerly distinguished by the appellation of _petits appartemens du Palais Bourbon_, and which, before the revolution, constituted one of the curiosities of Paris.
In the distribution of these, BÉLISARD assembled all the charms of modern elegance. The vestibule, coloured in French gray, contains, in the intervals between the doors, figures of Bacchantes, and, in the ceiling, wreaths of roses and other ornaments painted in imitation of relief. The eating-room, which comes next, is decorated so as to represent a verdant bower, the paintings are under mirrors, and tin-plate, cut out in the Chinese manner, seems to shew light through the foliage. In two niches, made in the arbour-work, in the form of porticoes, which Cupids are crowning with garlands, are placed two statues from the antique, the one representing Venus _pudica_, and the other, Venus _callypyga_, or _aux belles fesses_: mirrors, placed in the niches, reflect beauties which the eye could not discover.