Constant leaves the Palace

Anyone who has entered the Seine Assize Court once knows "Constant", the court bailiff. For thirty-four years, the presidents have succeeded each other, the advocates general have paraded, the clerks themselves have been successively the Wilmès father, the Prignons, the Wilmès sons, the Meyrards, only one has not moved: it is Constant Waltz, who attended all cases, big and small. from the Eyraud-Bompard affair, which saw the beginnings of Me Henri-Robert and Me Félix Decori, to the cases of recent days, in which young interns who were to be presidents of the Bar perhaps pleaded... around 1950!

But Constant's reign ends on Tuesday, after the audience, he will put on his habit, he will go down the stone staircase reserved for magistrates and jurors for the last time, after shaking how many hands and, a tear in his corner of the eye, because he is a brave man and a brave heart, he will leave this courthouse where he lived for so long, he will go to retire in Franche-Comté.

The assize court without Constant! Who could have imagined it? How will journalists now know when the hearing will end? How will those eager to know the solution of exciting debates know what the probable opinion of the jury is?

Let us salute in passing this old servant of Justice, at the moment when his smiling friendliness leaves the ancient Palace of Saint-Louis