The garden, which may have been fifteen mètres square, was bounded on the side of the house by a pathway of paving-stones, leading to a corridor tiled with square red bricks, a staircase at the end completing the vista. But before you reached this staircase, you first passed four doors. The one on the left belonged to the dining-room, the window of which looked out upon the tidiest part of the garden; on the right, opposite it, was a small room, not much used, where a table and three or four old arm-chairs were left to grow damp. In several places the wall paper was bulging out and falling off, without anybody taking any notice of it, and was becoming pitted with green and white damp spots. Then, on the left again, came the kitchen door, and, on the right, the larder and pantry. This dark and damp ground-floor was like a catacomb, and was only descended into at meal-times. The real dwelling-rooms, where we were entertained, were on the first floor. This floor contained a small and a large drawing-room, and the bedrooms belonging to Madame Villenave and Madame Waldor. We will leave the small drawing-room and the two bedrooms and give our whole attention to the large salon, which, after the attics (let us hasten to mention these here, before we have the right of entering them), was the strangest room in the house. Its shape was a long rectangle, having, at each of its angles, a console table supporting a bust. One of these busts was that of the master of the house. Between the two busts, at the bottom end, on a marble-topped table opposite the fireplace, was the most important piece of art and archæology in the room: this was the bronze urn that had once contained the heart of Bayard. A little bas-relief encircled the urn depicting the "chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_" leaning against a tree and kissing his sword handle. Next came four large pictures--three of them portraits and the fourth a landscape. Let us begin with the landscape--honour to whom honour is due--the landscape was by Claude Lorraine. One of the portraits represented Anne Boleyn and was signed by Holbein. I forget by whom the two other paintings were: one was of Madame de Montespan and the other either Madame de Sévigné or de Grignan, I am not sure which. The walls were covered with one of those indefinite papers that leave no impression on the memory; the furniture was upholstered in Utrecht velvet; large couches with thin white arms, like the arms of a hunchback, invited friends of the family to be comfortable; while there were chairs and arm-chairs for more formal visitors. That storey had both its king and its vice-queen: the king was M. Villenave, the vice-queen was Madame Waldor. We purposely say "vice-queen," because immediately M. Villenave entered his salon he became the master of it, the king--more than king, the despot! M. Villenave was inclined to be tyrannical in character, and exercised this tyranny over strangers as well as over his own family.