It is remarkable for the strength of its construction,--a style of
building introduced by Marie de' Medici. Though built of granite,--a
stone which is hard to work,--its angles, and the casings of the doors
and windows, are decorated with corner blocks cut into diamond facets.
It has only one clear story above the ground-floor; but the roof, rising
steeply, has several projecting windows, with carved spandrels rather
elegantly enclosed in oaken frames, and externally adorned with
balustrades. Between each of these windows is a gargoyle presenting the
fantastic jaws of an animal without a body, vomiting the rain-water upon
large stones pierced with five holes. The two gables are surmounted by
leaden bouquets,--a symbol of the bourgeoisie; for nobles alone had
the privilege in former days of having weather-vanes. To right of
the courtyard are the stables and coach-house; to left, the kitchen,
wood-house, and laundry.

One side of the porte-cochere, being left open, allowed the passers in
the street to see in the midst of the vast courtyard a flower-bed, the
raised earth of which was held in place by a low privet hedge. A few
monthly roses, pinkes, lilies, and Spanish broom filled this bed, around
which in the summer season boxes of paurestinus, pomegranates, and
myrtle were placed. Struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of the
courtyard and its dependencies, a stranger would at once have divined
that the place belonged to an old maid. The eye which presided there
must have been an unoccupied, ferreting eye; minutely careful, less from
nature than for want of something to do. An old maid, forced to employ
her vacant days, could alone see to the grass being hoed from between
the paving stones, the tops of the walls kept clean, the broom
continually going, and the leather curtains of the coach-house always
closed. She alone would have introduced, out of busy idleness, a sort
of Dutch cleanliness into a house on the confines of Bretagne and
Normandie,--a region where they take pride in professing an utter
indifference to comfort.

Never did the Chevalier de Valois, or du Bousquier, mount the steps of
the double stairway leading to the portico of this house without saying
to himself, one, that it was fit for a peer of France, the other, that
the mayor of the town ought to live there.

A glass door gave entrance from this portico into an antechamber, a
species of gallery paved in red tiles and wainscoted, which served as a
ho