It was a group of no less than eleven figures, four inches
high; the Deserter emerging from Jail escorted by a guard of
soldiers, while a young person, swooning in the foreground,
held out his reprieve. The hearth and fire-irons were of the
same date and style. The more recent family portraits —
one or two Eigauds and three pastels by Latour — adorned
the wainscot panels.
The study, paneled entirely in old lacquer work, red and
black and gold, would have fetched fabulous sums a few years
later; Mile. Cormon was as far as possible from suspecting
its value; but if she had been offered a thousand crowns for
every panel, she would not have parted with a single one. It
was a part of her system to alter nothing, and everywhere
in the provinces the belief in ancestral hoards is very strong.
The boudoir, never used, was hung with the old-fashioned
chintz so much run after nowadays by amateurs of the
"Pompadour style," as it is called.
The dining-room was paved with black-and-white stone;
it had not been ceiled, but the joists and beams were painted.
Eanged round the walls, beneath a flowered trellis, painted in
fresco, stood the portentous, marble-topped sideboards, in-
dispensable in the warfare waged in the provinces asrainst the
powers of digestion. The chairs were cane-seated and
varnished, the doors of unpolished walnut wood. Everything
combined admirably to complete the general effect, the old-
world air of the house within and without. The provincial
spirit had preserved all as it had always been ; nothing was
new or old, young or decrepit. You felt a sense of chilly
precision everywhere.
