The Lesser Bourgeoisie | Page 5

which was occupied by M. Dutocq, clerk of the justice of peace,
a retired government employee, and a frequenter of the Thuillier salon;

the other by the hero of this Scene, about whom we must content
ourselves at the present moment by fixing the amount of his rent,--
namely, seven hundred francs a year,--and the location he had chosen
in the heart of this well-filled building, exactly three years before the
curtain rises on the present domestic drama.
The clerk, a bachelor of fifty, occupied the larger of the two apartments
on the third floor. He kept a cook, and the rent of the rooms was a
thousand francs a year. Within two years of the time of her purchase,
Mademoiselle Thuillier was receiving seven thousand two hundred
francs in rentals, for a house which the late proprietor had supplied with
outside blinds, renovated within, and adorned with mirrors, without
being able to sell or let it. Moreover, the Thuilliers themselves, nobly
lodged, as we shall see, enjoyed also a fine garden,--one of the finest in
that quarter,--the trees of which shaded the lonely little street named the
rue Neuve-Saint-Catherine.
Standing between the courtyard and the garden, the main building,
which they inhabited, seems to have been the caprice of some enriched
bourgeois in the reign of Louis XIV.; the dwelling, perhaps, of a
president of the parliament, or that of a tranquil savant. Its noble
free-stone blocks, damaged by time, have a certain air of Louis-the-
Fourteenth grandeur; the courses of the facade define the storeys;
panels of red brick recall the appearance of the stables at Versailles; the
windows have masks carved as ornaments in the centre of their arches
and below their sills. The door, of small panels in the upper half and
plain below, through which, when open, the garden can be seen, is of
that honest, unassuming style which was often employed in former
days for the porter's lodges of the royal chateaux.
This building, with five windows to each course, rises two storeys
above the ground-floor, and is particularly noticeable for a roof of four
sides ending in a weather-vane, and broken here and there by tall,
handsome chimneys, and oval windows. Perhaps this structure is the
remains of some great mansion; but after examining all the existing old
maps of Paris, we find nothing which bears out this conjecture.
Moreover, the title-deeds of property under Louis XIV. was Petitot, the

celebrated painter in miniature, who obtained it originally from
President Lecamus. We may therefore believe that Lecamus lived in
this building while he was erecting his more famous mansion in the rue
de Thorigny.
So Art and the legal robe have passed this way in turn. How many
instigations of needs and pleasures have led to the interior arrangement
of the dwelling! To right, as we enter a square hall forming a closed
vestibule, rises a stone staircase with two windows looking on the
garden. Beneath the staircase opens a door to the cellar. From this
vestibule we enter the dining-room, lighted from the courtyard, and the
dining-room communicates at its side with the kitchen, which forms a
continuation of the wing in which are the warerooms of Metivier and
Barbet. Behind the staircase extends, on the garden side, a fine study or
office with two large windows. The first and second floor form two
complete apartments, and the servants' quarters are shown by the oval
windows in the four-sided roof.
A large porcelain stove heats the square vestibule, the two glass doors
of which, placed opposite to each other, light it. This room, paved in
black and white marble, is especially noticeable for a ceiling of beams
formerly painted and gilt, but which had since received, probably under
the Empire, a coat of plain white paint. The three doors of the study,
salon and dining-room, surmounted by oval panels, are awaiting a
restoration that is more than needed. The wood- work is heavy, but the
ornamentation is not without merit. The salon, panelled throughout,
recalls the great century by its tall mantelpiece of Languedoc marble,
its ceiling decorated at the corners, and by the style of its windows,
which still retain their little panes. The dining-room, communicating
with the salon by a double door, is floored with stone; the wood-work
is oak, unpainted, and an atrocious modern wall-paper has been
substituted for the tapestries of the olden time. The ceiling is of
chestnut; and the study, modernized by Thuillier, adds its quota to these
discordances.
The white and gold mouldings of the salon are so effaced that nothing
remains of the gilding but reddish lines, while the white enamelling is

yellow, cracked, and peeling off. Never did the Latin saying "Otium
cum dignitate" have a greater commentary to the mind of a poet than in