pictures and articles of choice workmanship bought in 1818, at a
time when no one suspected the ultimate value of such treasures. Her
bedroom is of the period of Louis XV. and strictly exact to it. Here we
see the carved wooden bedstead painted white, with the arched head-board
surmounted by Cupids scattering flowers, and the canopy above it adorned
with plumes; the hangings of blue silk; the Pompadour dressing-table
with its laces and mirror; together with bits of furniture of singular
shape,--a "duchesse," a chaise-longue, a stiff little sofa,--with
window-curtains of silk, like that of the furniture, lined with pink
satin, and caught back with silken ropes, and a carpet of Savonnerie;
in short, we find here all those elegant, rich, sumptuous, and dainty
things in the midst of which the women of the eighteenth century lived
and made love.

The study, entirely of the present day, presents, in contrast with the
Louis XV. gallantries, a charming collection of mahogany furniture;
it resembles a boudoir; the bookshelves are full, but the fascinating
trivialities of a woman's existence encumber it; in the midst of which
an inquisitive eye perceives with uneasy surprise pistols, a narghile,
a riding-whip, a hammock, a rifle, a man's blouse, tobacco, pipes, a
knapsack,--a bizarre combination which paints Felicite.

Every great soul, entering that room, would be struck with the peculiar
beauty of the landscape which spreads its broad savanna beyond the park,
the last vegetation on the continent. The melancholy squares of water,
divided by little paths of white salt crust, along which the salt-makers
pass (dressed in white) to rake up and gather the salt into _mulons_;
a space which the saline exhalations prevent all birds from crossing,
stifling thus the efforts of botanic nature; those sands where the
eye is soothed only by one little hardy persistent plant bearing rosy
flowers and the Chartreux pansy; that lake of salt water, the sandy
dunes, the view of Croisic, a miniature town afloat like Venice on the
sea; and, finally the mighty ocean tossing its foaming fringe upon the
granite rocks as if the better to bring out their weird formations--that
sight uplifts the mind although it saddens it; an effect produced at
last by all that is sublime, creating a regretful yearning for things
unknown and yet perceived by the soul on far-off heights. These wild and
savage harmonies are for great spirits and great sorrows only.

This