weet peacefulness, produced
by the perfect calm, the stillness which prevailed, by the unpretentious
unity of color, the keeping of the picture, in the words a painter might
use. A certain nobleness in the details, the exquisite cleanliness of
the furniture, and a perfect concord of men and things, all brought the
word "suavity" to the lips.

Few persons were admitted to the rooms used by the Marquis and his two
sons, whose life might perhaps seem mysterious to their neighbors. In a
wing towards the street, on the third floor, there are three large rooms
which had been left in the state of dilapidation and grotesque bareness
to which they had been reduced by the printing works. These three rooms,
devoted to the evolution of the Picturesque History of China, were
contrived to serve as a writing-room, a depository, and a private room,
where M. d'Espard sat during part of the day; for after breakfast till
four in the afternoon the Marquis remained in this room on the third
floor to work at the publication he had undertaken. Visitors wanting to
see him commonly found him there, and often the two boys on their return
from school resorted thither. Thus the ground-floor rooms were a sort
of sanctuary where the father and sons spent their time from the hour
of dinner till the next day, and his domestic life was carefully closed
against the public eye.

His only servants were a cook--an old woman who had long been attached
to his family--and a man-servant forty years old, who was with him
when he married Mademoiselle de Blamont. His children's nurse had also
remained with them, and the minute care to which the apartment bore
witness revealed the sense of order and the maternal affections expended
by this woman in her master's interest, in the management of his house,
and the charge of his children. These three good souls, grave, and
uncommunicative folk, seemed to have entered into the idea which ruled
the Marquis' domestic life. And the contrast between their habits and
those of most servants was a peculiarity which cast an air of mystery
over the house, and fomented the calumny to which M. d'Espard himself
lent occasion. Very laudable motives had made him determine never to
be on visiting terms with any of the other tenants in the house. In
undertaking to educate his boys he wished to keep them from all contact
with strangers. Perhaps, too, he wished to avoid the intrusion of
neighbors.

In a man of his rank, at a time when