The house, well built of schistose stone and cement held together by courses of granite, has no pretensions to architecture; the eye sees only a bare wall, regularly pierced by the windows; those on the first floor have large panes, on the ground floor small quarries. Above the first floor there are lofts, under an enormously high-pointed roof, with a gable at each end, and two large dormers on each side. Under the angle of each gable a window looks out, like a Cyclops’ eye, to the west over the sea, to the east at Guérande. One side of the house faces the Guérande road; the other the waste over which le Croisic is seen, and beyond that the open sea. A little stream escapes through an opening in the garden wall on the side by the road to le Croisic, which it crosses, and is soon lost in the sand, or in the little pool of salt water enclosed by the sand-hills and marshland, being left there by the arm of the sea.
A few fathoms of roadway, constructed in this break in the soil, leads to the house. It is entered through a gate; the courtyard is surrounded by unpretentious rural outhouses—a stable, a coach-house, a gardener’s cottage with a poultry yard and sheds adjoining, of more use to the gatekeeper than to his mistress. The gray tones of this building harmonize delightfully with the scenery it stands in. The grounds are an oasis in this desert, on the edge of which the traveler has passed a mud-hovel, where customhouse officers keep guard. This house, with no lands, or rather of which the lands lie in the district of Guérande, derives an income of ten thousand francs from the marshes, and from farms scattered about the mainland. This was the fief of les Touches, deprived of its feudal revenues by the Revolution. Les Touches is still a property; the marshmen still speak of the Château and they would talk of the Lord if the owner were not a woman. When Félicité restored les Touches, she was too much of an artist to think of altering the desolate-looking exterior which gives this lonely building the appearance of a prison. Only the gate was improved by the addition of two brick piers with an architrave, under which a carriage can drive in. The courtyard was planted.
The arrangement of the ground floor is common to most country houses built a hundred years ago. The dwelling was evidently constructed on the ruins of a little castel perched there as a link connecting le Croisic and Batz with Guérande, and lording it over the marshes. A hall had been contrived at the foot of the stairs. The first room is a large wainscoted anteroom where Félicité has a billiard-table; next comes an immense drawing-room with six windows, two of which, at the gable-end, form doors leading to the garden, down ten steps, corresponding in the arrangement of the room with the door into the billiard-room, and that into the dining-room. The kitchen, at the other end, communicates with the dining-room through the pantry. The staircase is between the billiard-room and the kitchen, which formerly had a door into the hall; this Mademoiselle des Touches closed, and opened one to the courtyard.
The loftiness and spaciousness of the rooms enables Camille to treat this ground with noble simplicity. She was careful not to introduce any elaboration of detail. The drawing-room, painted gray, has old mahogany furniture with green silk cushions, white cotton window curtains bordered with green, two consoles, and a round table; in the middle is a carpet with a large pattern in squares; over the huge chimney-place are an immense mirror and a clock representing Apollo’s car, between candelabra of the style of the Empire. The billiard-room has gray cotton curtains, bordered with green, and two divans. The dining-room furniture consists of four large mahogany sideboards, a table, twelve mahogany chairs with horsehair seats, and some magnificent engravings by Audran in mahogany frames. From the middle of the ceiling hangs an elegant lamp such as were usual on the staircases of fine houses, with two lights. All the ceilings and the beams supporting them are painted to imitate wood. The old staircase, of wood with a heavy balustrade, is carpeted with green from top to bottom.
On the first floor were two sets of rooms divided by the staircase. Camille chose for her own those which look over the marshes, the sand-hills, and the sea, arranging them as a little sitting-room, a bedroom, a dressing-room, and a study. On the other side of the house she contrived two bedrooms, each with a dressing-closet and anteroom. The servants’ rooms are above. The two spare rooms had at first only the most necessary furniture. The artistic luxuries for which she had sent to Paris she reserved for her own rooms. In this gloomy and melancholy dwelling, looking out on that gloomy and melancholy landscape, she wanted to have the most fantastic creations of art. Her sitting-room is hung with fine
