angles and on the casings of the doors and windows. On either side is
a gateway of finely wrought iron, eaten with rust and connected by a
railing, beyond which is a wide and deep ha-ha, full of vigorous
trees, its parapets bristling with iron arabesques, the innumerable
sharp points of which are a warning to evil-doers.

The park walls begin on each side of the circumference of the
_rond-point_; on the one hand the fine semi-circle is defined by slopes
planted with elms; on the other, within the park, a corresponding
half-circle is formed by groups of rare trees. The pavilion,
therefore, stands at the centre of this round open space, which
extends before it and behind it in the shape of two horseshoes. Michu
had turned the rooms on the lower floor into a stable, a kitchen, and
a wood-shed. The only trace remaining of their ancient splendor was an
antechamber paved with marble in squares of black and white, which was
entered on the park side through a door with small leaded panes, such
as might still be seen at Versailles before Louis-Philippe turned that
Chateau into an asylum for the glories of France. The pavilion is
divided inside by an old staircase of worm-eaten wood, full of
character, which leads to the first story. Above that is an immense
garret. This venerable edifice is covered by one of those vast roofs
with four sides, a ridgepole decorated with leaden ornaments, and a
round projecting window on each side, such as Mansart very justly
delighted in; for in France, the Italian attics and flat roofs are a
folly against which our climate protests. Michu kept his fodder in
this garret. That portion of the park which surrounds the old pavilion
is English in style. A hundred feet from the house a former lake, now
a mere pond well stocked with fish, makes known its vicinity as much
by a thin mist rising above the tree-tops as by the croaking of a
thousand frogs, toads, and other amphibious gossips who discourse at