Erected at the time when
Henri II and Diane de Poitiers turned the sober city into one of
licentious dalliance, it had cheered the wayfarer during four
generations. It was three stories high, constructed of stone, gabled
and balconied, with a roof which resembled an assortment of fanciful
noses. Here and there the brown walls were lightened by patches of
plaster and sea-cobble; for though the buildings in the Rue du Palais
had stood in the shelter of the walls and fortifications, few had been
exempt from Monseigneur the Cardinal's iron compliments to the
Huguenots.
Swinging on an iron bar which projected from the porticoed entrance,
and supported by two grimacing cherubs, once daintily pink, but now
verging on rubicundity, a change due either to the vicissitudes of the
weather or to the close proximity to the wine-cellars,--was a horn of
plenty, the pristine glory of which had also departed. This invitation
often excited the stranger's laughter; but the Rochellais themselves
never laughed at it, for to them it represented a familiar object,
which, however incongruous or ridiculous, is always dear to the human
heart.
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