daily social routine were somewhat of a burden to him.


April 1714.

At last we shall understand something of that new style of his-the
Watteau style--so much relished by the fine people at Paris. He has taken
it into his kind head to paint and decorate our chief salon--the room with
the three long windows, which occupies the first floor of the house.

The room was a landmark, as we used to think, an inviolable milestone and
landmark, of old Valenciennes fashion--that sombre style, indulging much
in contrasts of black or deep brown with white, which the Spaniards left
behind them here. Doubtless their eyes had found its shadows cool and
pleasant, when they shut themselves in from the cutting sunshine of their
own country. But in our country, where we must needs economise not the
shade but the sun, its grandiosity weighs a little on one's spirits.
Well! the rough plaster we used to cover as well as might be with morsels
of old figured arras-work, is replaced by dainty panelling of wood, with
mimic columns, and a quite aerial scrollwork around sunken spaces of a
pale-rose stuff and certain oval openings--two over the doors, opening
on each side of the great couch which faces the windows, one over the
chimney-piece, and one above the buffet which forms its vis-a-vis--four
spaces in all, to be filled by and by with "fantasies" of the Four
Seasons, painted by his own hand. He will send us from Paris arm-chairs
of a new pattern he has devised, suitably covered, and a clavecin. Our
old silver candlesticks look well on the chimney-piece. Odd,
faint-coloured flowers fill coquettishly the little empty spaces here and
there, like ghosts of nosegays left by visitors long ago, which paled thus,
sympathetically, at the decease of their old owners; for, in spite of its