It is impossible to guess how long an extinct reputation
may survive, supported by such stale admiration.
So Grindot, for the thousandth time had displayed his white-and-gold
drawing-room paneled with crimson damask. The furniture, of rosewood,
clumsily carved, as such work is done for the trade, had in the
country been the source of just pride in Paris workmanship on the
occasion of an industrial exhibition. The candelabra, the fire-dogs,
the fender, the chandelier, the clock, were all in the most unmeaning
style of scroll-work; the round table, a fixture in the middle of the
room, was a mosaic of fragments of Italian and antique marbles,
brought from Rome, where these dissected maps are made of
mineralogical specimens--for all the world like tailors' patterns--an
object of perennial admiration to Crevel's citizen friends. The
portraits of the late lamented Madame Crevel, of Crevel himself, of
his daughter and his son-in-law, hung on the walls, two and two; they
were the work of Pierre Grassou, the favored painter of the
bourgeoisie, to whom Crevel owed his ridiculous Byronic attitude. The
frames, costing a thousand francs each, were quite in harmony with
this coffee-house magnificence, which would have made any true artist
shrug his shoulders.
Money never yet missed the smallest opportunity of being stupid. We
should have in Paris ten Venices if our retired merchants had had the
instinct for fine things characteristic of the Italians.
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