set fire to the house. But he was now alone, and without any means of
action; the fighting was centred in the market-place, where a few
obstinate beings were still defending the town. A better idea then
occurred to him. Diard came out of the convent, but Montefiore said
not a word of his discovery; on the contrary, he accompanied him on a
series of rambles about the streets. But the next day, the Italian had
obtained his military billet in the house of the draper,--an
appropriate lodging for an equipment captain!

The house of the worthy Spaniard consisted, on the ground-floor, of a
vast and gloomy shop, externally fortified with stout iron bars, such
as we see in the old storehouses of the rue des Lombards. This shop
communicated with a parlor lighted from an interior courtyard, a large
room breathing the very spirit of the middle-ages, with smoky old
pictures, old tapestries, antique "brazero," a plumed hat hanging to a
nail, the musket of the guerrillas, and the cloak of Bartholo. The
kitchen adjoined this unique living-room, where the inmates took their
meals and warmed themselves over the dull glow of the brazier, smoking
cigars and discoursing bitterly to animate all hearts with hatred
against the French. Silver pitchers and precious dishes of plate and
porcelain adorned a buttery shelf of the old fashion. But the light,
sparsely admitted, allowed these dazzling objects to show but
slightly; all things, as in pictures of the Dutch school, looked
brown, even the faces. Between the shop and this living-room, so fine
in color and in its tone of patriarchal life, was a dark staircase
leading to a ware-room where the light, carefully distributed,
permitted the examination of goods. Above this were the apartments of
the merchant and his wife. Rooms for an apprentice and a servant-woman
were in a garret under the roof, which projected over the street and
was supported by buttresses, giving a somewhat fantastic appearance to