now sell for nearly their weight in gold. Hanging over the fire-place,
Van Claes the martyr, painted by Titian in his robes as president of
the Court of Parchons, still seemed the head of the family, who
venerated him as their greatest man. The chimney-piece, originally in
stone with a very high mantle-shelf, had been made over in marble
during the last century; on it now stood an old clock and two
candlesticks with five twisted branches, in bad taste, but of solid
silver. The four windows were draped by wide curtains of red damask
with a flowered black design, lined with white silk; the furniture,
covered with the same material, had been renovated in the time of
Louis XIV. The floor, evidently modern, was laid in large squares of
white wood bordered with strips of oak. The ceiling, formed of many
oval panels, in each of which Van Huysum had carved a grotesque mask,
had been respected and allowed to keep the brown tones of the native
Dutch oak.

In the four corners of this parlor were truncated columns, supporting
candelabra exactly like those on the mantle-shelf; and a round table
stood in the middle of the room. Along the walls card-tables were
symmetrically placed. On two gilded consoles with marble slabs there
stood, at the period when this history begins, two glass globes filled
with water, in which, above a bed of sand and shells, red and gold and
silver fish were swimming about. The room was both brilliant and
sombre. The ceiling necessarily absorbed the light and reflected none.
Although on the garden side all was bright and glowing, and the
sunshine danced upon the ebony carvings, the windows on the court-yard
admitted so little light that the gold threads in the lapis-lazuli
scarcely glittered on the opposite wall. This parlor, which could be
gorgeous on a fine day, was usually, under the Flemish skies, filled
with soft shadows and melancholy russet tones, like those shed by the