This Admirable
House, In The Centre Of The Town, Gabled, Elaborately
Timbered, And Much Restored, Is A Really Imposing
Monument.
The basement is occupied by a linen-
draper, who flourishes under the auspicious sign of
the Mere de Famille; and above his shop the tall
front rises in five overhanging stories.
As the house
occupies the angle of a little _place_, this front is double,
and the black beams and wooden supports, displayed
over a large surface and carved and interlaced, have
a high picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is quite
in the grand style, and I am sorry to say I failed to
learn what history attaches to its name. If I spoke just
above of the cathedral as "moderate," I suppose I
should beg its pardon; for this serious charge was
probably prompted by the fact that it consists only of
a nave, without side aisles. A little reflection now
convinces me that such a form is a distinction; and,
indeed, I find it mentioned, rather inconsistently, in
my note-book, a little further on, as "extremely simple
and grand." The nave is spoken of in the same
volume as "big, serious, and Gothic," though the choir
and transepts are noted as very shallow. But it is not
denied that the air of the whole thing is original and
striking; and it would therefore appear, after all, that
the cathedral of Angers, built during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, is a sufficiently honorable church;
the more that its high west front, adorned with a very
primitive Gothic portal, supports two elegant tapering
spires, between which, unfortunately, an ugly modern
pavilion has been inserted.
I remember nothing else at Angers but the curious
old Cafe Serin, where, after I had had my dinner at
the inn, I went and waited for the train which, at nine
o'clock in the evening, was to convey me, in a couple
of hours, to Nantes, - an establishment remarkable for
its great size and its air of tarnished splendor, its
brown gilding and smoky frescos, as also for the fact
that it was hidden away on the second floor of an un-
assuming house in an unilluminated street. It hardly
seemed a place where you would drop in; but when
once you had found it, it presented itself, with the
cathedral, the castle, and the Maison d'Adam, as one
of the historical monuments of Angers.
XV.
If I spent two nights at Nantes, it was for reasons
of convenience rather than of sentiment; though, in-
deed, I spent them in a big circular room which had
a stately, lofty, last-century look, - a look that con-
soled me a little for the whole place being dirty. The
high, old-fashioned, inn (it had a huge, windy _porte-
cochere_, and you climbed a vast black stone staircase
to get to your room) looked out on a dull square, sur-
rounded with other tall houses, and occupied on one
side by the theatre, a pompous building, decorated
with columns and statues of the muses.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 57 of 145
Words from 29288 to 29794
of 75796
