At the period when the events were passing which we are now relating, at one end of the Rue du Sentier a long old wall extended, covered with a coat of whitewash, and the top garnished with a row of broken flint-glass bottles; this wall, bounding on one side the garden of Jacques Ferrand, the notary, terminated with a _corps de logis_ facing the street, only one story high, with garrets. Two large escutcheons of gilt copper, emblems of the notarial residence, flanked the worm-eaten _porte cochere_, of which the primitive colour was no longer to be distinguished under the mud which covered it. This entrance led to an open passage; on the right was the lodge of an old porter, almost deaf, who was to the body of tailors what M. Pipelet was to the body of boot-makers; on the left a stable, used as a cellar, washhouse, woodhouse, and the establishment of a rising colony of rabbits belonging to the porter, who was dissipating the sorrows of a recent widowhood by bringing up these domestic animals. Beside the lodge was the opening of a twisting staircase, narrow and dark, leading to the office, as was announced to the clients by a hand painted black, whose forefinger was directed towards these words, also painted in black upon the wall, "The Office on the first floor." On one side of a large paved court, overgrown with grass, were empty stables; on the other side, a rusty iron gate, which shut in the garden; at the bottom the pavilion, inhabited only by the notary. A flight of eight or ten steps of disjointed stones, which were moss-grown and time-worn, led to this square pavilion, consisting of a kitchen and other underground offices, a ground floor, a first floor, and the top rooms, in one of which Louise had slept. The pavilion also appeared in a state of great dilapidation. There were deep chinks in the walls; the window-frames and outside blinds, once painted gray, had become almost black by time; the six windows on the first floor, looking out into the courtyard, had no curtains; a sort of greasy and opaque deposit covered the glass; on the ground floor there were visible through the window-panes more transparent, faded yellow cotton curtains, with red bindings. On the garden side the pavilion had only four windows. The garden, overgrown with parasitical plants, seemed wholly neglected. There was no flower border, not a bush; a clump of elms; five or six large green trees; some acacias and elder-trees; a yellowish grass-plat, half destroyed by moss and the scorch of the sun; muddy paths, choked up with weeds; at the bottom, a sort of half cellar; for horizon, the high, naked, gray walls of the adjacent houses, having here and there skylights barred like prison windows,--such was the miserable appearance of the garden and dwelling of the notary.