"Perry stepped aside and struck one of the casks with his stick, when, stumbling over the skid on the floor, he brought the whole pile of tierces tumbling down in a heap of mould, rust and dirt. Escaping from the smudge and smell of dead wood, we went up a few steps to another level in the foundations, and came into the kitchens of the 'new house.' The main kitchen is a vaulted chamber, divided by rows of pillars, the ceiling being perhaps twenty feet in the clear, and the area of the entire floor thirty feet by fifty. At either end are stone platforms, something like a blacksmith's forge, only much larger, and over these smoke-hoods are suspended, connected with the cavernous chimneys. At each corner of these hearths are iron cranes hung with chains, and between two of these cranes the intendant pointed out an indescribable mass of something supposed to be a stag roasted whole--not at present a very toothsome-looking morsel. Dozens of pots and kettles hang from the chains, and scores of pans and ovens stand in rows underneath. Thickly scattered over the floor near these fireplaces are the bones of game and poultry, probably dragged there by rats, though we did not encounter rat or mouse or any living thing within the walls, and our friend tells us there has been no form of life in the chateau during his memory. "The ascent from the kitchens is by an inclined plane, a broad roadway, up which the mammoth triumphs of last-century culinary skill were hauled on trucks, several of which vehicles stand near the foot of the way. The banquet-hall occupies nearly one-half the entire first floor of the 'new house.' We entered this magnificent apartment at the lower end from a dark lobby, and it seemed ablaze with light and color, though we presently noticed that only the ceiling and upper half of the room were illuminated, the floor and furniture being in shadow and covered with dust. On one side are six large windows opening on the terrace, the lower sashes overgrown with vines and blocked up with accumulated rubbish, while the upper panes are comparatively clean and clear. The ceiling is divided into panels by heavy carved and gilded mouldings, the panels painted with mythological designs in the style of the seventeenth century. The early morning sun lit up these splendors, making the white and gold and thousand bright tints shine like the array of Solomon, while from the height of our heads to the tiles under foot the entire area was covered with one monotonous coating of dark-gray dust.