offices. The house is build of freestone from cellar to garret. The
facade on the court-yard has a portico with a double range of steps,
the wall of which is covered with vestiges of carvings now effaced by
time, but in which the eye of an antiquary can still make out in the
centre of the principal mass the Hand bearing the sword. The granite
steps are now disjointed, grasses have forced their way with little
flowers and mosses through the fissures between the stones which
centuries have displaced without however lessening their solidity. The
door of the house must have had a charming character. As far as the
relics of the old designs allow us to judge, it was done by an artist
of the great Venetian school of the thirteenth century. Here is a
mixture, still visible, of the Byzantine and the Saracenic. It is
crowned with a circular pediment, now wreathed with vegetation,--a
bouquet, rose, brown, yellow, or blue, according to the season. The
door, of oak, nail-studded, gives entrance to a noble hall, at the end
of which is another door, opening upon another portico which leads to
the garden.

This hall is marvellously well preserved. The panelled wainscot, about
three feet high, is of chestnut. A magnificent Spanish leather with
figures in relief, the gilding now peeled off or reddened, covers the
walls. The ceiling is of wooden boards artistically joined and painted
and gilded. The gold is scarcely noticeable; it is in the same
condition as that of the Cordova leather, but a few red flowers and
the green foliage can be distinguished. Perhaps a thorough cleaning
might bring out paintings like those discovered on the plank ceilings
of Tristan's house at Tours. If so, it would prove that those planks
were placed or restored in the reign of Louis XI. The chimney-piece is
enormous, of carved stone, and within it are gigantic andirons in
wrought-iron of precious workmanship. It could hold a cart-load of