looked on an immense court-yard, on each side of which
an arcade led to the vast interior departments. The other front
overlooked the garden, or rather park, of twelve or fifteen roods; and,
on this side, wings, approaching the principal part of the structure,
formed a couple of lateral galleries. Like nearly all the other great
habitations of this quarter, there might be seen at the extremity of the
garden, what the owners and occupiers of each called the lesser mansion.
This extension was a Pompadour summer-house, built in the form of a
rotunda, with the charming though incorrect taste of the era of its
erection. It presented, in every part where it was possible for the
stones to be cut, a profusion of endives, knots of ribbons, garlands of
flowers, and chubby cupids. This pavilion, inhabited by Adrienne de
Cardoville was composed of a ground floor, which was reached by a
peristyle of several steps. A small vestibule led to a circular hall,
lighted from the roof. Four principal apartments met here; and ranges of
smaller rooms, concealed in the upper story, served for minor purposes.
These dependencies of great habitations are in our days disused, or
transformed into irregular conservatories; but by an uncommon exception,
the black exterior of the pavilion had been scraped and renewed, and the
entire structure repaired. The white stones of which it was built
glistened like Parian marble; and its renovated, coquettish aspect
contrasted singularly with the gloomy mansion seen at the other extremity
of an extensive lawn, on which were planted here and there gigantic
clumps of verdant trees.
The following scene occurred at this residence on the morning following
that of the arrival of Dagobert, with the daughters of Marshal Simon, in
the Rue Brise-Miche. The hour of eight had sounded from the steeple of a
neighboring church; a brilliant winter sun arose to brighten a pure blue
sky behind the tall leafless trees, which in summer formed a dome of
verdure over the summer-house. The door in the vestibule opened, and the
rays of the morning sun beamed upon a charming creature, or rather upon
two charming creatures, for the second one, though filling a modest place
in the scale of creation, was not less distinguished by beauty of its
own, which was very striking. In plain terms two individuals, one of them
a young girl, and the other a tiny English dog, of great beauty, of that
breed of spaniels called King Charles's, made t
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