The Brotherhood of Consolation | Page 8

level with the pavement;
consequently what was once the ground-floor of the house of which we
speak is now its cellar. A portico, reached by a few steps, leads to the
entrance of the tower, in which a spiral stairway winds up round a
central shaft carved with a grape-vine. This style, which recalls the
stairways of Louis XII. at the chateau of Blois, dates from the
fourteenth century. Struck by these and other evidences of antiquity,
Godefroid could not help saying, with a smile, to the priest: "This tower
is not of yesterday."
"It sustained, they say, an assault of the Normans, and probably formed
part of the first palace of the kings of Paris; but, according to actual
tradition, it was certainly the dwelling of the famous Canon Fulbert, the
uncle of Heloise."
As he ended these words, the priest opened the door of the apartment
which appeared now to be the ground-floor of the house, but was in
reality towards both the front and back courtyard (for there was a small
interior court) on the first floor.
In the antechamber a maid-servant, wearing a cambric cap with fluted
frills for its sole decoration, was knitting by the light of a little lamp.
She stuck her needles into her hair, held her work in her hand, and rose
to open the door of a salon which looked out on the inner court. The
dress of the woman was somewhat like that of the Sisters of Mercy.

"Madame, I bring you a tenant," said the priest, ushering Godefroid
into the salon, where the latter saw three persons sitting in armchairs
near Madame de la Chanterie.
These three persons rose; the mistress of the house rose; then, when the
priest had drawn up another armchair for Godefroid, and when the
future tenant had seated himself in obedience to a gesture of Madame
de la Chanterie, accompanied by the old-fashioned words, "Be seated,
monsieur," the man of the boulevards fancied himself at some
enormous distance from Paris,--in lower Brittany or the wilds of
Canada.
Silence has perhaps its own degrees. Godefroid, already penetrated
with the silence of the rues Massillon and Chanoinesse, where two
carriages do not pass in a month, and grasped by the silence of the
courtyard and the tower, may have felt that he had reached the very
heart of silence in this still salon, guarded by so many old streets, old
courts, old walls.
This part of the Ile, which is called "the Cloister," has preserved the
character of all cloisters; it is damp, cold, and monastically silent even
at the noisiest hours of the day. It will be remarked, also, that this
portion of the Cite, crowded between the flank of Notre-Dame and the
river, faces the north, and is always in the shadow of the cathedral. The
east winds swirl through it unopposed, and the fogs of the Seine are
caught and retained by the black walls of the old metropolitan church.
No one will therefore be surprised at the sensations Godefroid felt
when he found himself in this old dwelling, in presence of four silent
human beings, who seemed as solemn as the things which surrounded
them.
He did not look about him, being seized with curiosity as to Madame
de la Chanterie, whose name was already a puzzle to him. This lady
was evidently a person of another epoch, not to say of another world.
Her face was placid, its tones both soft and cold; the nose aquiline; the
forehead full of sweetness; the eyes brown; the chin double; and all
were framed in silvery white hair. Her gown could only be called by its
ancient name of "fourreau," so tightly was she sheathed within it, after
the fashion of the eighteenth century. The material--a brown silk, with
very fine and multiplied green lines--seemed also of that period. The
bodice, which was one with the skirt, was partly hidden beneath a

mantle of /poult-de-soie/ edged with black lace, and fastened on the
bosom by a brooch enclosing a miniature. Her feet, in black velvet
boots, rested on a cushion. Madame de la Chanterie, like her maid, was
knitting a stocking, and she, too, had a needle stuck through her white
curls beneath the lace of her cap.
"Have you seen Monsieur Millet?" she said to Godefroid, in the head
voice peculiar to the dowagers of the faubourg Saint-Germain,
observing that her visitor seemed confused, and as if to put the words
into his mouth.
"Yes, madame."
"I fear that the apartment will scarcely suit you," she said, noticing the
elegance and newness of his clothes.
Godefroid was wearing polished leather boots, yellow gloves,
handsome studs, and a very pretty gold chain passed through the
buttonhole of his waistcoat of black silk with blue flowers. Madame