"Window-curtains, red; furniture, red; mantelpiece, red, veined
yellow, candelabra and clock ditto mounted on bronze, common and heavy
in design,--Roman standards with Greek foliage! Above the clock is
that inevitable good-natured lion which looks at you with a simper,
the lion of ornamentation, with a big ball under his feet, symbol of
the decorative lion, who passes his life holding a black ball,
--exactly like a deputy of the Left. Perhaps it is meant as a
constitutional myth. The face of the clock is curious. The glass over
the chimney is framed in that new fashion of applied mouldings which
is so trumpery and vulgar. From the ceiling hangs a chandelier
carefully wrapped in green muslin, and rightly too, for it is in the
worst taste, the sharpest tint of bronze with hideous ornaments. The
walls are covered with a red flock paper to imitate velvet enclosed in
panels, each panel decorated with a chromo-lithograph in one of those
frames festooned with stucco flowers to represent wood-carving. The
furniture, in cashmere and elm-wood, consists, with classic
uniformity, of two sofas, two easy-chairs, two armchairs, and six
common chairs. A vase in alabaster, called a la Medicis, kept under
glass stands on a table between the windows; before the windows, which
are draped with magnificent red silk curtains and lace curtains under
them, are card-tables. The carpet is Aubusson, and you may be sure the
Rogrons did not fail to lay hands on that most vulgar of patterns,
large flowers on a red ground. The room looks as if no one ever lived
there; there are no books, no engravings, none of those little
knick-knacks we all have lying about," added Madame Tiphaine, glancing
at her own table covered with fashionable trifles, albums, and little
presents given to her by friends; "and there are no flowers,--it is
all cold and barren, like Mademoiselle Sylvie herself. Buffon says the
style is the man, and certainly salons have styles of their own."