the remarkable trio of chimney-pieces at the right end
of the room as you enter, to the fifteenth. The three
tall fireplaces, side by side, with a delicate gallery
running along the top of them, constitute the originality
of this ancient chamber, and make one think of the
groups that must formerly have gathered there, - of
all the wet boot-soles, the trickling doublets, the
stiffened fingers, the rheumatic shanks, that must have
been presented to such an incomparable focus of
heat. To-day, I am afraid, these mighty hearts are
forever cold; justice it probably administered with the
aid of a modern _calorifere_, and the walls of the palace
are perforated with regurgitating tubes. Behind and
above the gallery that surmounts the three fireplaces
are high Gothic windows, the tracery of which masks,
in some sort, the chimneys; and in each angle of this
and of the room to the right and left of the trio of
chimneys, is all open-work spiral staircase, ascending
to - I forget where; perhaps to the roof of the edifice.
This whole side of the _salle_ is very lordly, and seems
to express an unstinted hospitality, to extend the
friendliest of all invitations, to bid the whole world
come and get warm. It was the invention of John,
Duke of Berry and Count of Poitou, about 1395. I
give this information on the authority of the Guide-
Joanne, from which source I gather much other curious
learning; for instance, that it was in this building,
when it had surely a very different front, that Charles VII.
was proclaimed king, in 1422; and that here Jeanne
Darc was subjected, in 1429, to the inquisition of