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Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the

night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on

before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This

thrown open, admitted him to his own private apartment of three

rooms: his bed-chamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with

cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths for the

burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries befitting the

state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of

the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to break--the

fourteenth Louis--was conspicuous in their rich furniture; but,

it was diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old

pages in the history of France.