“Let us go into the armoury,” said Madame de Bonmont, pushing open the door. “It is warmed with hot-air pipes.” It was true that the armoury was so heated. Amidst the grotesque encaustic tiles of M. Quatrebarbe, designed after the manner of the old paving he had torn up, the hot-air gratings opened their bright brazen mouths. Madame de Bonmont was careful to invite the Abbé Guitrel to a seat near one of the radiators, and to ask him if his feet were damp, and whether he would not have a glass of something hot. Under the ribbed vault of its roof, the huge room glittered with a display of iron and steel such as not even the Armeria in Madrid could boast. One or two of the financier’s brilliant business coups had resulted in a collection of armour not to be equalled by that of Spitzer himself. Examples of the three centuries of plate armour were there in every form known to Europe. On the gigantic chimney-piece, guarded by two Brabançons in magnificent cuisses, a condottiere’s suit of mail bestrode that of a horse, with open chamfron, horse muzzle, mane-guard, tail-guard, and poitrel. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with dazzling suits of armour, casques, basinets, helmets, salades, morions, skull caps, iron hats, hauberks, coats of armour, brigantines, greaves, solerets, and spurs. From the shields, bucklers, and targes, of all descriptions, radiated flambergs, Konigsmark swords, partizans, gisarmes, war-scythes, two-edged swords, Toledo rapiers, poniards, stylets, and daggers. All around the room stood phantom figures clothed in polished and unpolished steel; in steel, engraved, inlaid, chased, and damascened. Maximiliennes with fluted and bowed cuirasses, puffed and bell-shaped suits of armour, the “polichinelle” of Henri III, and the “écrevisse” of Louis XIII. Panoplies of war that had adorned French, Spanish, Italian, German, and English princes; coats of mail worn by knights, captains, sergeants, crossbowmen, reiters, veterans, by soldiers of fortune from every country in Europe, by mercenaries and Switzers. Here was steel armour that had figured at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; at the jousts and tourneys of England, France, and Germany; armour from Poitiers, Verneuil, Granson, Fornovo, Ceresole, Pavia, Ravenna, Pultava, and Culloden; worn by nobles or mercenaries, by knights or caitiffs, by victor or vanquished, by friend or foe--all collected by the Baron and displayed in this room.