on a pivot, contains a couch in gilt wood of the truest Pompadour. The
ceiling is lapis-lazuli starred with gold. The tiles are painted from
designs by Boucher. Bath, table and love are therefore closely united.

After the salon, which, I should tell you, my dear fellow, exhibits
the magnificence of the Louis XIV. manner, you enter a fine billiard-room
unrivalled so far as I know in Paris itself. The entrance to this
suite of ground-floor apartments is through a semi-circular
antechamber, at the lower end of which is a fairy-like staircase,
lighted from above, which leads to other parts of the house, all built
at various epochs--and to think that they chopped off the heads of the
wealthy in 1793! Good heavens! why can't people understand that the
marvels of art are impossible in a land where there are no great
fortunes, no secure, luxurious lives? If the Left insists on killing
kings why not leave us a few little princelings with money in their
pockets?

At the present moment these accumulated treasures belong to a charming
woman with an artistic soul, who is not content with merely restoring
them magnificently, but who keeps the place up with loving care. Sham
philosophers, studying themselves while they profess to be studying
humanity, call these glorious things extravagance. They grovel before
cotton prints and the tasteless designs of modern industry, as if we
were greater and happier in these days than in those of Henri IV.,
Louis XIV., and Louis XVI., monarchs who have all left the stamp of
their reigns upon Les Aigues. What palace, what royal castle, what
mansions, what noble works of art, what gold brocaded stuffs are
sacred now? The petticoats of our grandmothers go to cover the chairs
in these degenerate days. Selfish and thieving interlopers that we
are, we pull down everything and plant cabbages where marvels once