|NOT long ago the Château of Asay-le-Rideau, a masterpiece of the French art of the sixteenth century, was in peril. Today it is the turn of the Chateau de Maisons, a masterpiece of the French art of the seventeenth century. But this time it is not a question of a peril which is more or less distant. The destruction of Maisons is a fact which is decided upon. The property has just fallen into the hands of a real estate speculator. He intends to cut up what remains of the park into house lots. As to the chateau, the wreckers will first rip out the magnificent mantelpieces and the incomparable sculptures which adorn the walls; they will sell them; then they will tear down the building. The fragments will serve to fill the moats, and on the ground thus made level they will build suburban villas. [Illustration: 0167] The Department of Fine Arts looks on powerlessly at this act of abominable vandalism, for the Chateau de Maisons is not listed as a national monument. And not one of those amateurs who spend fortunes every day to buy childish ornaments, restored pictures and ragged tapestries, not a single one of these can be found who will preserve for France one of the monuments which are the glory of French architecture. Not one of those public administrations which incessantly build at enormous expense hospitals, asylums, colleges, has thought that it might be able, by utilizing this vast building, to render at the same stroke a brilliant service to art and to history! It is said that the department of Seine-et-Oise is looking for a site on which to build a hospital; why did it not long ago decide to appropriate the Chateau de Maisons for this purpose? It is intolerable to think that one of the most beautiful residences of old France, situated at the very gates of Paris, is going to be stupidly demolished, at a time when the curators of our museums can find the necessary money to purchase archaeological curiosities and foreign trifles! [11] And you will see that, as soon as Maisons is stripped by the house wreckers, it will be found very proper to purchase at great expense for the Louvre a few of the statues and a part of the bas-reliefs which vandals will have been permitted to tear from the place where François Mansart had them placed! The agony of Maisons will have lasted more than seventy years. It was the banker Laffitte who, after 1830, commenced the work of destruction, made way with the terraces and the cascades which were placed between the château and the Seine, and demolished the great stables, a magnificent building decorated with precious sculptures, which was the marvel of Maisons. It was he who cut up the greater part of the park, five hundred hectares, and cut down the centenarian trees of the domain of the Longueils.