and a large section of the new society which was destined to be known after the Restoration as the Liberal party; and these, with du Croisier as their unacknowledged head, laughed at an aristocratic oasis which nobody might enter without proof of irreproachable descent.  Their animosity was all the more bitter because honest country squires and the higher officials, with a good many worthy folk in the town, were of the opinion that all the best society thereof was to be found in the Marquis d’Esgrignon’s salon.  The prefect himself, the Emperor’s chamberlain, made overtures to the d’Esgrignons, humbly sending his wife (a Grandlieu) as ambassadress.

Wherefore, those excluded from the miniature provincial Faubourg Saint-Germain nicknamed the salon “The Collection of Antiquities,” and called the Marquis himself “M.  Carol.”  The receiver of taxes, for instance, addressed his applications to “M.  Carol (ci-devant des Grignons),” maliciously adopting the obsolete way of spelling.

“For my own part,” said Emile Blondet, “if I try to recall my childhood memories, I remember that the nickname of ’Collection of Antiquities’ always made me laugh, in spite of my respect—­my love, I ought to say—­for Mlle. d’Esgrignon.  The Hotel d’Esgrignon stood at the angle of two of the busiest thoroughfares in the town, and not five hundred paces away from the market place.  Two of the drawing-room windows looked upon the street and two upon the square; the room was like a glass cage, every one who came past could look through it from side to side.  I was only a boy of twelve at the time, but I thought, even then, that the salon was one of those rare curiosities which seem, when you come to think of them afterwards, to lie just on the borderland between reality and dreams, so that you can scarcely tell to which side they most belong.

“The room, the ancient Hall of Audience, stood above a row of cellars with grated air-holes, once the prison cells of the old court-house, now converted into a kitchen.  I do not know that the magnificent lofty chimney-piece of the Louvre, with its marvelous carving, seemed more wonderful to me than the vast open hearth of the salon d’Esgrignon when I saw it for the first time.  It was covered like a melon with a network of tracery.  Over it stood an equestrian portrait of Henri III., under whom the ancient duchy of appanage reverted to the crown; it was a great picture executed in low relief, and set in a carved and gilded frame.  The ceiling spaces between the chestnut cross-beams in the fine old roof were decorated with scroll-work patterns; there was a little faded gilding still left along the angles.  The walls were covered with Flemish tapestry, six scenes from the Judgment of Solomon, framed in golden garlands, with satyrs and cupids playing among the leaves.  The parquet floor had been laid down by the present Marquis, and Chesnel had picked up the furniture at sales of the wreckage of old chateaux