terrace, forming a quay, down which are several steps leading to the river.  Imagine on the balustrade of this terrace a number of tall vases of blue and white pottery, in which are gilliflowers; and to right and left, along the neighboring walls, hedges of linden closely trimmed in, and you will gain an idea of the landscape, full of tranquil chastity, modest cheerfulness, but commonplace withal, which surrounded the venerable edifice of the Cormon family.  What peace! what tranquillity! nothing pretentious, but nothing transitory; all seems eternal there!

The ground-floor is devoted wholly to the reception-rooms.  The old, unchangeable provincial spirit pervades them.  The great square salon has four windows, modestly cased in woodwork painted gray.  A single oblong mirror is placed above the fireplace; the top of its frame represented the Dawn led by the Hours, and painted in camaieu (two shades of one color).  This style of painting infested the decorative art of the day, especially above door-frames, where the artist displayed his eternal Seasons, and made you, in most houses in the centre of France, abhor the odious Cupids, endlessly employed in skating, gleaning, twirling, or garlanding one another with flowers.  Each window was draped in green damask curtains, looped up by heavy cords, which made them resemble a vast dais.  The furniture, covered with tapestry, the woodwork, painted and varnished, and remarkable for the twisted forms so much the fashion in the last century, bore scenes from the fables of La Fontaine on the chair-backs; some of this tapestry had been mended.  The ceiling was divided at the centre of the room by a huge beam, from which depended an old chandelier of rock-crystal swathed in green gauze.  On the fireplace were two vases in Sevres blue, and two old girandoles attached to the frame of the mirror, and a clock, the subject of which, taken from the last scene of the “Deserteur,” proved the enormous popularity of Sedaine’s work.  This clock, of bronze-gilt, bore eleven personages upon it, each about four inches tall.  At the back the Deserter was seen issuing from prison between the soldiers; in the foreground the young woman lay fainting, and pointing to his pardon.  On the walls of this salon were several of the more recent portraits of the family,—­one or two by Rigaud, and three pastels by Latour.  Four card tables, a backgammon board, and a piquet table occupied the vast room, the only one in the house, by the bye, which was ceiled.

The dining-room, paved in black and white stone, not ceiled, and its beams painted, was furnished with one of those enormous sideboards with marble tops, required by the war waged in the provinces against the human stomach.  The walls, painted in fresco, represented a flowery trellis.  The seats were of varnished cane, and the doors of natural wood.  All things about the place carried out the patriarchal air which emanated from the inside as well as the outside of the house.  The genius of the provinces preserved everything; nothing was new or old, neither young nor decrepit.  A cold precision made itself felt throughout.