This suite, comprising a bed, dressing and bath room, besides the boudoir in question, was designated by the household as _la volière_; for the whole plan of decoration was based upon bird life. It had been a fantasy of a Marquise de Plenhöel, arriving as a bride there from the Court of Versailles, to evolve for her own personal use this dainty retreat, so completely at variance with the grim fortress on the coast of Finisterre. She had been of a gay and witty spirit, had this pretty Marquise, and this was testified by the ingenuity with which these embellishments had been planned. From the exquisite lampas covering the walls, where flights of winged things seemed alive amid branches of pale brocaded roses and apple-blossoms, from the curtains and portières of like material, the beautifully medallioned and painted ceilings, the pink-marble fireplaces and faintly gilded cornices, down to the very carpets, lounges, and chairs, birds and flowers were repeated in every imaginable hue and tint. Carved, embroidered, painted, and chiseled, the feathered tribes hovered between garlands of bloom as admirably preserved as if the hands of the artists had but just put the finishing touches to their gracious task. The inspirer of it all had died on the guillotine in 1794, but her pastel portrait hanging in the boudoir smiled the imperishable smile of an all-conquering loveliness and charm. Her azure gaze, so proud and high-bred beneath the powdered and diamond-dewed waves of her coiffure, riveted Madame Hortense’s attention, as it always did when her duties called her to that portion of the State Apartments. She paused before the cupid-wreathed flame, and gazed at the slender waist in the silk-and-lace corselet of a Court toilette; at the slim hands clasped over the nacre sticks of a _point d’Argentan_ fan; at the trail of jasmine intermingled with strands of great pearls, crossing like the ribbon of some Order from the right shoulder to the left ride of the cloth-of-silver girdle, and she sighed profoundly. “_Ah! quelle pitié!_” she whispered, “_quelle pitié!_” Then, struck by a sudden thought, she bent swiftly forward. “How Marguerite resembles her!” she resumed, half aloud. “I had never noticed that before.” And a shade of fear darkened her own eyes for an instant. But she had not come to indulge in vain contemplations and vague forebodings. So, straightening herself, she cast a quick look about the room. Inside one of the window-places a Louis XVI. desk of celadon-green wood, inlaid preciously with more birds and flowers, had been left open. On the velvet-covered writing-board lay, in unpleasant contrast, one of those eminently durable and business-like blotting-books for which the world is indebted to England. Covered in pigskin, it displayed the large, flat monogram, L. S., in visibly extra-solid silver, while a fountain-pen of similar usefulness and practicality had been uncapped, in dangerous proximity to the softly faded lining of the desk.