is princely pile has fallen since the
unhappy death of the last of the Condes, but it is to be hoped into
those of the young Duc D'Aumale, for I believe he boasts the blood of
the Montmorencies, through some intermarriage or other; and if not, he
comes, at least, of a line accustomed to dwell in palaces. I do not like
to see these historical edifices converted into manufactories, nor am I
so much of a modern utilitarian as to believe the poetry of life is
without its correcting and useful influences. Your cold, naked
utilitarian, holds a sword that bruises as well as cuts; and your
sneaking, trading aristocrat, like the pickpocket who runs against you
in the crowd before he commits his theft, one that cuts as well as
bruises.

We were at Ecouen not long before the death of its last possessor, and
visited its wide but untenanted halls with strong interest. The house
was first erected by some Montmorency, or other, at or near the time of
the crusades, I believe; though it has been much altered since. Still it
contains many curious vestiges of the taste of that remote age. The old
domestic who showed us through the building was as quaint a relic as
anything about the place. He had accompanied the family into exile, and
passed many years with them in England. In courtesy, respect, and
delicate attention, he would have done credit to the court of Louis XIV;
nor was his intelligence unworthy of his breeding. This man, by the way,
was the only Frenchman whom I ever knew address an Englishman (or, as in
my case, one whom he mistook for an Englishman), by the old appelation
of _milord_. The practice is gone out, so far as my experience extends.

I remember to have learned from this courteous old servant, the origin
of the common term _croisee_, which is as often used in large houses as
that of _fenetre_. At the period when every man's heart and wishes were
bound up in the excitement and enterprise of the crusades, and it was
thought that heaven was to be entered sword in hand, the cross was a
symbol used as a universal ornament. Thus the aperture for a window was
left in the wall, and a stone cross erected in the centre. The several
compartments in the casements came from the shape of the cross, and the
term _croisee_ from _croix_. All this is plain enough, and perhaps there
are few who do not know it; but gazing at the ornaments of Ecouen, my
eyes fell on the doors, where I detected crosses in the most familiar
objects. There