e sharp
points of which are a warning to evil-doers.

The park walls begin on each side of the circumference of the
_rond-point_; on the one hand the fine semi-circle is defined by slopes
planted with elms; on the other, within the park, a corresponding
half-circle is formed by groups of rare trees. The pavilion, therefore,
stands at the centre of this round open space, which extends before it
and behind it in the shape of two horseshoes. Michu had turned the rooms
on the lower floor into a stable, a kitchen, and a wood-shed. The only
trace remaining of their ancient splendor was an antechamber paved with
marble in squares of black and white, which was entered on the park side
through a door with small leaded panes, such as might still be seen at
Versailles before Louis-Philippe turned that Chateau into an asylum
for the glories of France. The pavilion is divided inside by an old
staircase of worm-eaten wood, full of character, which leads to the
first story. Above that is an immense garret. This venerable edifice
is covered by one of those vast roofs with four sides, a ridgepole
decorated with leaden ornaments, and a round projecting window on each
side, such as Mansart very justly delighted in; for in France, the
Italian attics and flat roofs are a folly against which our climate
protests. Michu kept his fodder in this garret. That portion of the park
which surrounds the old pavilion is English in style. A hundred feet
from the house a former lake, now a mere pond well stocked with fish,
makes known its vicinity as much by a thin mist rising above the
tree-tops as by the croaking of a thousand frogs, toads, and other
amphibious gossips who discourse at sunset. The time-worn look of
everything, the deep silence of the woods, the long perspective of the
avenue, the forest in the distance, the rusty iron-work, the masses of
stone draped with velvet mosses, all made poetry of this old structure,
which still exists.

At the moment when our history begins Michu was leaning against a
mossy parapet on which he had laid his powder-horn, cap, handkerchief,
screw-driver, and rags,--in fact, all the utensils needed for his
suspicious occupation. His wife's chair was against the wall beside the
outer door of the house, above which could still be seen the arms of the
Simeuse family, richly carved, with their noble motto, "Cy meurs." The
old mother, in peasant dress, had moved her chair in front of Madame
Michu, so that the latter