Paris. At the end of a month, I was very dejected. It
was in the autumn, and I wished to make, before the approach of winter,
an excursion through Normandy, a country with which I was unacquainted.

I began my journey, in the best of spirits, at Rouen, and for eight days
I wandered about passive, ravished and enthusiastic, in that ancient
city, in that astonishing museum of extraordinary Gothic monuments.

But, one afternoon, about four o'clock, as I was sauntering slowly
through a seemingly unattractive street, by which there ran a stream as
black as the ink called "Eau de Robec," my attention, fixed for the
moment on the quaint, antique appearance of some of the houses, was
suddenly turned away by the view of a series of second-hand furniture
shops, which succeeded one another, door after door.

Ah! they had carefully chosen their locality, these sordid traffickers
in antiquaries, in that quaint little street, overlooking that sinister
stream of water, under those tile and slate-pointed roofs in which still
grinned the vanes of byegone days.

At the end of these grim storehouses you saw piled up sculptured chests,
Rouen, Sevre, and Moustier's pottery, painted statues, others of oak,
Christs, Virgins, Saints, church ornaments, chasubles, capes, even sacred
vases, and an old gilded wooden tabernacle, where a god had hidden
himself away. Oh! What singular caverns are in those lofty houses,
crowded with objects of every description, where the existence of things
seems to be ended, things which have survived their original possessors,
their century, their times, their fashions, in order to be bought as
curiosities by new generations.

My affection for bibelots was awakened in that city of antiquaries. I
went from shop to shop crossing, in two strides, the four plank rotten
bridges thrown over the nauseous current of the Eau de Robec.

Heaven protect me! What a shock! One of my most beautiful wardrobes was
suddenly descried by me, at the end of a vault, which was crowded with
articles of every description and which seemed to be the entrance to some
catacombs of a cemetery of ancient furniture. I approached my wardrobe,
trembling in every limb, trembling to such an extent that I dare not
touch it. I put forth my hand, I hesitated. It was indeed my wardrobe,
nevertheless; a unique wardrobe of the time of Louis XIII., recognizable
by anyone who had only seen it once. Casting my eyes suddenly a little
farther, towards the