ow-a-days everything is changing;
furniture is made from Greek models; wherever you go you see helmets,
lances, shields, and bows and arrows! Everybody is rebuilding his house,
selling his old furniture, melting up his silver dishes, or exchanging
them for Sevres porcelain,--which does not compare with either old
Dresden or with Chinese ware. Oh! as for me, I'm Flemish to the core;
my heart actually bleeds to see the coppersmiths buying up our beautiful
inlaid furniture for the mere value of the wood and the metal. The fact
is, society wants to change its skin. Everything is being sacrificed,
even the old methods of art. When people insist on going so fast,
nothing is conscientiously done. During my last visit to Paris I was
taken to see the pictures in the Louvre. On my word of honor, they
are mere screen-painting,--no depth, no atmosphere; the painters were
actually afraid to put colors on their canvas. And it is they who talk
of overturning our ancient school of art! Ah, bah!--"

"Our old masters," replied Balthazar, "studied the combination of colors
and their endurance by submitting them to the action of sun and rain.
You are right enough, however; the material resources of art are less
cultivated in these days than formerly."

Madame Claes was not listening to the conversation. The notary's remark
that porcelain dinner-services were now the fashion, gave her the
brilliant idea of selling a quantity of heavy silver-ware which she
had inherited from her brother,--hoping to be able thus to pay off the
thirty thousand francs which her husband owed.

"Ha! ha!" Balthazar was saying to Pierquin when Madame Claes's mind
returned to the conversation, "so they are discussing my work in Douai,
are they?"

"Yes," replied the notary, "every one is asking what it is you spend so
much money on. Only yesterday I heard the chief-justice deploring that a
man like you should be searching for the Philosopher's stone. I ventured
to reply that you were too wise not to know that such a scheme was
attempting the impossible, too much of a Christian to take God's work
out of his hands; and, like every other Claes, too good a business man
to spend your money for such befooling quackeries. Still, I admit that I
share the regret people feel at your absence from society. You might as
well not live here at all. Really, madame, you would have been delighted
had you heard the praises showered on Monsieur Claes and on you."

"You acted like a