ce!
what tranquillity! nothing pretentious, but nothing transitory; all
seems eternal there!

The ground-floor is devoted wholly to the reception-rooms. The old,
unchangeable provincial spirit pervades them. The great square salon
has four windows, modestly cased in woodwork painted gray. A single
oblong mirror is placed above the fireplace; the top of its frame
represented the Dawn led by the Hours, and painted in camaieu (two
shades of one color). This style of painting infested the decorative
art of the day, especially above door-frames, where the artist
displayed his eternal Seasons, and made you, in most houses in the
centre of France, abhor the odious Cupids, endlessly employed in
skating, gleaning, twirling, or garlanding one another with flowers.
Each window was draped in green damask curtains, looped up by heavy
cords, which made them resemble a vast dais. The furniture, covered
with tapestry, the woodwork, painted and varnished, and remarkable for
the twisted forms so much the fashion in the last century, bore scenes
from the fables of La Fontaine on the chair-backs; some of this
tapestry had been mended. The ceiling was divided at the centre of the
room by a huge beam, from which depended an old chandelier of
rock-crystal swathed in green gauze. On the fireplace were two vases
in Sevres blue, and two old girandoles attached to the frame of the
mirror, and a clock, the subject of which, taken from the last scene
of the "Deserteur," proved the enormous popularity of Sedaine's work.
This clock, of bronze-gilt, bore eleven personages upon it, each about
four inches tall. At the back the Deserter was seen issuing from
prison between the soldiers; in the foreground the young woman lay
fainting, and pointing to his pardon. On the walls of this salon were
several of the more recent portraits of the family,--one or two by
Rigaud, and three pastels by Latour. Four card tables, a backgammon
board, and a piquet table occupied the vast room, the only one in the
house, by the bye, which was ceiled.

The dining-room, paved in black and white stone, not ceiled, and its
beams painted, was furnished with one of those enormous sideboards
with marble tops, required by the war waged in the provinces against
the human stomach. The walls, painted in fresco, represented a flowery
trellis. The seats were of varnished cane, and the doors of natural
wood. All things about the place carried out the patriarchal air which
emanated from