spring-tide brought forth fragile flowers, timid creeping plants, and
sparse herbage. Moss carpeted the roof and draped its supports. The
corner pillar, with its composite masonry of stone blocks mingled with
brick and pebbles, was alarming to the eye by reason of its curvature;
it seemed on the point of giving way under the weight of the house,
the gable of which overhung it by at least half a foot. The municipal
authorities and the commissioner of highways did, eventually, pull the
old building down, after buying it, to enlarge the square.

The pillar we have mentioned, placed at the angle of two streets, was
a treasure to the seekers for Limousin antiquities, on account of its
lovely sculptured niche in which was a Virgin, mutilated during the
Revolution. All visitors with archaeological proclivities found traces
of the stone sockets used to hold the candelabra in which public piety
lighted tapers or placed its _ex-votos_ and flowers.

At the farther end of the shop, a worm-eaten wooden staircase led to
the two upper floors which were in turn surmounted by an attic. The
house, backing against two adjoining houses, had no depth and derived
all its light from the front and side windows. Each floor had two
small chambers only, lighted by single windows, one looking out on the
rue de la Cite, the other on the rue de la Vieille-Poste.

In the middle-ages no artisan was better lodged. The house had
evidently belonged in those times to makers of halberds and battle-axes,
armorers in short, artificers whose work was not injured by exposure
to the open air; for it was impossible to see clearly within, unless
the iron shutters were raised from each side of the building; where
were also two doors, one on either side of the corner pillar, as may
be seen in many shops at the corners of streets. From the sill of