It consists of a first President, three Presidents of Chambres, eighteen Conseillers Maîtres, twenty-four Conseillers Référendaires of the first class, sixty of the second class, a Procureur général, fifteen Auditeurs of the first class, ten of the second class, a Greffier en chef, etc. The salaries of these officials are about the same as those of the Cour de Cassation. The first President has the supreme direction of all the deliberations of the court, as well as of the police and general surveillance. The court is divided into three Chambres, having each a President and six Conseillers Maîtres who alone have a voice in the deliberations and constitute, themselves, the members of the administrative tribunal sitting in judgment. The deliberations are not public. The Presidents and Conseillers cannot be removed, and are placed on the retired list, the Presidents and Maîtres at seventy-five years of age, and the Référendaires at seventy years. The court addresses an annual report to the chief of the State, in which it sets forth those matters which, in the course of its examinations, have seemed to it worthy of the attention of the government, and advocates those reforms and ameliorations in the administration of the public finances which have been suggested to it by its consideration of the various facts and enactments.
The Cour d'Appel, at the Palais de Justice, includes in its jurisdiction the departments of the Aube, Eure-et-Loir, Marne, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-et-Oise, Yonne-et-Seine. In all cases, the decrees are rendered by the magistrates deliberating, in groups of some odd number,--at least five, including the President. In all civil and commercial cases, appeal can be made from all decisions rendered by the tribunals of the arrondissements or of commerce, by referees, judicial reports upon cases in litigation in which the amount involved exceeds fifteen hundred francs of injury to the person or to personal property, or sixty francs of revenue from real estate.
This court is composed of a first President, nine Presidents of Chambres, and sixty-two Conseillers, divided among nine Chambres, of which seven decide upon civil and commercial appeals, one upon appeals _Correctionnels_, and the ninth is the Chambre des Mises en Accusation, before which are brought criminal cases after they have passed the stage of preliminary examination. The Parquet connected with the Cour d'Appel consists of the Procureur général, seven Avocats généraux, and eleven Substituts of the Procureur général. The Cour d'Appel sits in judgment as a court of first and last resort in all cases of misdemeanors, involving a legal penalty, committed by the magistrates of the Cour de Cassation, of the Cour d'Appel, of the Tribunal de Première Instance, by the Juges de Paix, the Préfets, the Grand Officers of the Legion of Honor, generals, archbishops, bishops, presidents of Consistoires in the Protestant and Jewish organizations.