But the vials have long been exhausted and the angels have fled back to heaven.

The houses all bear a strong family resemblance to each other, which adds to their charm and harmony.  Most of them possess two doors, one giving access to the shop we have just described, the other admitting to a hall or vestibule, panelled, and often richly sculptured.  Above the rez-de-chaussee, two or three stories rise, supported by enormous beams richly moulded and sculptured, again supported in their turn by other beams equally massive, whose massiveness is disguised by rich sculpture and ornamentation:  a profusion of boughs, of foliage, so beautifully wrought that you may trace the veins in the leaves of niches, pinnacles and statues:  corner posts ornamented with figures of kings, priests, saints, monsters, and bagpipers.  The windows seem to multiply themselves as they ascend, with their small panes crossed and criss-crossed by leaden lines:  the fronts of many are slated with slates cut into lozenge shapes; and many possess the “slate apron” found in fifteenth century houses, with the slates curved outwardly to protect the beam.

By the second door you pass down a long passage into what originally was probably a small yard, but has now been turned into a living-room or kitchen covered over at the very top of the house by a skylight.  This is an arrangement now peculiar to Brittany.  The staircase occupies one side of the space, and you may trace the windings to the very summit, curiously arranged at the angles.  These singularly-constructed rooms have given to the houses the name of lanternes.  Every room has an enormous fireplace, in which you might almost roast an ox, built partly of wood and stone, richly carved and ornamented.  But let the eye rest where it will, it is charmed by rich carvings and mouldings, beams wonderfully sculptured, statues, ancient niches and grotesques.

In one of these houses is to be found a wonderful staircase of carved oak and great antiquity, that in itself would make Morlaix worth visiting.  It is in the Flamboyant style, and was probably erected about the year 1500.  For Brittany is behind the age in its carvings as much as in everything else, and this staircase in any other country might safely be put down to the year 1450.  It is of wonderful beauty, and almost matchless in the world:  a marvel of skill and refinement.  It possesses also a lavoir, the only known example in existence, with doors to close when it is not in use; the whole thing a dream of beautiful sculpture.

[Illustration:  OLD STAIRCASE IN THE GRAND’ RUE, MORLAIX, SHOWING LAVOIR.]

One other house in Morlaix has also a very wonderful staircase; still more wonderful, perhaps, than that in the Grand’ Rue; but it is not in such good preservation.  The house is in the Rue des Nobles, facing the covered market-place.  It is called the house of the Duchesse Anne, and here in her day and generation she must have lived or lodged.