spital for the family portraits,--some having an eye put out, others
suffering from a dislocated shoulder; this one held his hat in a hand
that no longer existed; that one was a case of amputation at the knee.
Here were deposited the cloaks, clogs, overshoes, umbrellas, hoods, and
pelisses of the guests. It was an arsenal where each arrival left his
baggage on arriving, and took it up when departing. Along each wall was
a bench for the servants who arrived with lanterns, and a large stove,
to counteract the north wind, which blew through this hall from the
garden to the courtyard.

The house was divided in two equal parts. On one side, toward the
courtyard, was the well of the staircase, a large dining-room looking to
the garden, and an office or pantry which communicated with the kitchen.
On the other side was the salon, with four windows, beyond which were
two smaller rooms,--one looking on the garden, and used as a boudoir,
the other lighted from the courtyard, and used as a sort of office.

The upper floor contained a complete apartment for a family household,
and a suite of rooms where the venerable Abbe de Sponde had his abode.
The garrets offered fine quarters to the rats and mice, whose nocturnal
performances were related by Mademoiselle Cormon to the Chevalier
de Valois, with many expressions of surprise at the inutility of her
efforts to get rid of them. The garden, about half an acre in size, is
margined by the Brillante, so named from the particles of mica which
sparkle in its bed elsewhere than in the Val-Noble, where its shallow
waters are stained by the dyehouses, and loaded with refuse from
the other industries of the town. The shore opposite to Mademoiselle
Cormon's garden is crowded with houses where a variety of trades are
carried on; happily for her, the occupants are quiet people,--a baker,
a cleaner, an upholsterer, and several bourgeois. The garden, full of
common flowers, ends in a natural terrace, forming a quay, down which
are several steps leading to the river. Imagine on the balustrade of
this terrace a number of tall vases of blue and white pottery, in which
are gilliflowers; and to right and left, along the neighboring walls,
hedges of linden closely trimmed in, and you will gain an idea of
the landscape, full of tranquil chastity, modest cheerfulness, but
commonplace withal, which surrounded the venerable edifice of the Cormon
family. What peace! what tranquillity! nothing pretentious, but