History: La Salle des Pas-Perdus

Salle des pas perdus of the Paris Court of Appeal

The origins of the lost and found room

Everyone imagines the Lost and Found Room as that vast space where one paces through the courts, anxiously awaiting a verdict?

But contrary to what one might think, the name of this room does not come from the time wasted going around in circles...

Connaissez-vous l’origine de cette expression  » salle des pas-perdus »  ?

The definition

Selon le Littré, la définition exacte est celle « d’un large vestibule s’ouvrant sur divers bureaux et autres salles d’un bâtiment ouvert au public. »

Le terme de « la salle des pas perdus » s’applique par conséquent à toute salle d’attente vaste, claire, ouverte à tous. Son utilisation s’est toutefois concentrée sur les bâtiments administratifs, et plus particulièrement sur les tribunaux. C’est en effet la salle (le hall, devrais-je dire) qui se trouve à l’entrée des salles d’audience.

The origin

On pourrait penser que le nom vienne du fait que, en tournant en rond, on y perd ses pas, d’où le terme de « pas » qui seraient « perdus ».

However, the origin of this expression is much more interesting.

C’est sous le règne de Louis XVIII que l’expression « la salle des pas perdus » prend son origine. À cette époque, le contexte politique français est trouble. Après un premier exil, Napoléon retrouve son nom d’empereur (c’est l’épisode des cent jours). En 1815, après la défaite de Waterloo, arrive la seconde restauration et Louis XVIII reprend le trône.

The return of Louis XVIII was accompanied by the election, in August 1815, of a Chamber of Deputies. Censal suffrage pushed the nobility and the bourgeoisie to elect deputies whom they believed to be the defenders of France, the Restoration and their interests. It is an ultra-royalist Chamber with strong anti-revolutionary convictions that is elected.

Thus, out of the 400 members of the House, 350 ultraroyalists are elected. The king did not think he could dream of anything better and named it "House untraceable". Louis XVIII meant by this expression that even if he had appointed his own members, he would not have found such a royalist chamber.

But this chamber quickly became "more royalist than the king", and was opposed to the progressive ideas of Louis XVIII and his government led by the Duke of Richelieu. It was dissolved by the government a year after it came to power.

During the new election some MPs are not re-elected, they are the "lost ones", while the re-elected MPs are called the "not-lost ones".

At the Palais Bourbon, where the Chamber is held, they meet in a room that naturally takes the name of the "salle des pas perdus".

That's how this expression was born!