OVER STRAND AND FIELD

We walked through the empty galleries and deserted rooms

where spiders spin their cobwebs over the salamanders of Francis

the First. One is overcome by a feeling of distress at the sight of this

poverty which has no grandeur. It is not absolute ruin, with the

luxury of blackened and mouldy débris, the delicate embroidery of

flowers, and the drapery of waving vines undulating in the breeze,

like pieces of damask. It is a conscious poverty, for it brushes its

threadbare coat and endeavours to appear respectable. The floor has

been repaired in one room, while in the next it has been allowed to

rot. It shows the futile effort to preserve that which is dying and to

bring back that which has fled. Strange to say, it is all very

melancholy, but not at all imposing.