imitation of blocks of stone, with green moss on them in places. A
handsome, but not new, barometer hung on the middle of one of the
walls, as if to accentuate the void. At the sight of it all, he looked
round at his wife; he saw her so much pleased by the red braid binding
to the cotton curtains, so satisfied with the barometer and the
strictly decent statue that ornamented a large Gothic stove, that he
had not the barbarous courage to overthrow such deep convictions.
Instead of blaming his wife, Granville blamed himself, accusing
himself of having failed in his duty of guiding the first steps in
Paris of a girl brought up at Bayeux.

From this specimen, what might not be expected of the other rooms?
What was to be looked for from a woman who took fright at the bare
legs of a Caryatid, and who would not look at a chandelier or a
candle-stick if she saw on it the nude outlines of an Egyptian bust?
At this date the school of David was at the height of its glory; all
the art of France bore the stamp of his correct design and his love of
antique types, which indeed gave his pictures the character of colored
sculpture. But none of these devices of Imperial luxury found civic
rights under Madame de Granville's roof. The spacious, square
drawing-room remained as it had been left from the time of Louis XV.,
in white and tarnished gold, lavishly adorned by the architect with
checkered lattice-work and the hideous garlands due to the uninventive
designers of the time. Still, if harmony at least had prevailed, if
the furniture of modern mahogany had but assumed the twisted forms of
which Boucher's corrupt taste first set the fashion, Angelique's room
would only have suggested the fantastic contrast of a young couple in
the nineteenth century living as though they were in the eighteenth;
but a number of details were in ridiculous discord. The consoles, the
clocks, the candelabra, were decorated with the military trophies