placed, necessitating a greenhouse. On the side toward the square the
house is entered from a portico raised several steps above the level
of the street. According to the custom of small towns the gate of the
courtyard, used only for the service of the house or for any unusual
arrival, was seldom opened. Visitors, who mostly came on foot, entered
by the portico.

The style of the Hotel Soudry is plain. The courses are indicated by
projecting lines; the windows are framed by mouldings alternately
broad and slender, like those of the Gabriel and Perronnet pavilion in
the place Louis XV. These ornaments in so small a town give a certain
solid and monumental air to the building which has become celebrated.

Opposite to this house, in another angle of the square stands the
famous Cafe de la Paix, the characteristics of which, together with
the fascinations of its Tivoli, will require, somewhat later, a less
succinct description than that we have given of the Soudry mansion.

Rigou very seldom came to Soulanges; everybody was in the habit of
going to him,--Lupin and Gaubertin, Soudry and Gendrin,--so much were
they afraid of him. But we shall presently understand why any educated
man, such as the ex-Benedictine, would have done as Rigou did, and
kept away from the little town, after reading the following sketch of
the personages who composed what was called in those parts "the
leading society of Soulanges."

Of its principal figures, the most original, as you have already
suspected, was that of Madame Soudry, whose personality, to be duly
rendered, needs a minute and careful brush.