Thus Sunday, the 20th of February, arrived. On that day the silence that had reigned over La Fromentière vanished, but to give place to what noises--what clatter! Visitors were again seen within its walls, but what visitors! People had come from afar, curiosity dealers from Nantes, from La Rochelle, even from Paris. Before eight in the morning they had gathered in groups beside the two flights of steps leading to the portico. Men, short, stout, red-faced; some with auburn beards, others with bird-like noses, talking together in subdued voices, sitting on chairs--to be sold--that had been ranged in rows on the broad carriage drive, laid with the red gravel that used to crunch so pleasantly beneath the roll of carriage wheels. On the topmost of the entrance steps, now converted into an auctioneer's rostrum, were the notary, Maître Oulry, his eyes displaying discreet satisfaction behind his spectacles, the public crier, indifferent as any stone-breaker to the relics of which he was about to announce the dispersion, and the furniture removers standing in their shirt-sleeves despite the intense cold. The two flights of stone steps, stained with mud even to half way up the balustrades, testified to the crowds admitted on the previous two days to see the interior of the Château. Some had gone from curiosity, taking advantage of their first opportunity to go over a seigniorial dwelling; but all within was in disorder, faded, covered with dust. The battens, which for years had secured the windows of the rooms on the ground-floor, had been unnailed on one side, and hung down beside the open _persiennes_. In the dining-hall, and the two drawing-rooms _en suite_, had been piled the greater part of the bedroom furniture, cooking utensils, and crockery. Pictures, turned with their faces to the wall, formed a dado in front of couches and easy-chairs; there were four clocks on one mantel-piece, candelabras standing in fireplaces, fire-dogs on occasional tables, book shelves on the billiard table, baskets of choice wine standing in the boudoir of the dowager Marquise, hung with its dainty cherry-coloured satin; silk draperies trailing on a kitchen table. Broken bell-ropes and strips of torn paper hung from the walls. Everywhere was disorder and desolation as complete as is produced by Death in the human frame. Pushing their way through the narrow passages left by all these piles of costly objects were to be seen coarse men accustomed to the handling of rags and rubbish, discharged servants, dealers in old clothes, coffee-house keepers covetously fingering carved oak chests, scratching the gold off picture frames to see how deep it was laid; opening cupboards and drawers, and bursting into rude loud laughter if, perchance, they lighted upon some private token, such as photographs, letters, missals, rosaries, relics of departed souls thus exposed to, and profaned by vulgar eyes.