and the Haute-Loire. At the New
Year and on her birthday her friends never failed to give her some
curiosities. These fancies found favor in the eyes of Monsieur de la
Baudraye; they gave him an appearance of sacrificing a few crowns to his
wife's taste. In point of fact, his land mania allowed him to think of
nothing but the estate of Anzy.

These "antiquities" at that time cost much less than modern furniture.
By the end of five or six years the ante-room, the dining-room, the two
drawing-rooms, and the boudoir which Dinah had arranged on the ground
floor of La Baudraye, every spot even to the staircase, were crammed
with masterpieces collected in the four adjacent departments. These
surroundings, which were called _queer_ by the neighbors, were quite in
harmony with Dinah. All these Marvels, so soon to be the rage, struck
the imagination of the strangers introduced to her; they came expecting
something unusual; and they found their expectations surpassed when,
behind a bower of flowers, they saw these catacombs full of old things,
piled up as Sommerard used to pile them--that "Old Mortality" of
furniture. And then these finds served as so many springs which, turned
on by a question, played off an essay on Jean Goujon, Michel Columb,
Germain Pilon, Boulle, Van Huysum, and Boucher, the great native painter
of Le Berry; on Clodion, the carver of wood, on Venetian mirrors, on
Brustolone, an Italian tenor who was the Michael-Angelo of boxwood
and holm oak; on the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries, on the glazes of Bernard de Palissy, the enamels
of Petitot, the engravings of Albrecht Durer--whom she called Dur;
on illuminations on vellum, on Gothic architecture, early decorated,
flamboyant and pure--enough to turn an old man's brain and fire a young
man with enthusiasm.

Madame de la Baudraye, possessed with the idea of waking up Sancerre,
tried to form a so-called literary circle. The Presiding Judge, Monsieur
Boirouge, who happened to have a house and garden on his hands, part of
the Popinot-Chandier property, favored the notion of this _coterie_.
The wily Judge talked over the rules of the society with Madame de la
Baudraye; he proposed to figure as one of the founders, and to let the
house for fifteen years to the literary club. By the time it had existed
a year the members were playing dominoes, billiards, and bouillotte, and
drinking mulled wine, punch, and liqueurs. A few ele