One afternoon at around four o’clock I turned in to an incredible street where a river called Eau de Robec flowed with water as black as ink. While I was looking with great interest at the bizarre architecture of the houses there, my attention was drawn to a series of antique shops set all in a row, one next door to the other. Those crooked old dealers in antiquity had certainly picked the right place. The street was eerie, with its pointed tile and slate roofs where ancient weather vanes still creaked on high. Stored in the dark interiors of these shops could be seen carved sideboards piled high, one on top of the other, Nevers pottery,2 Moustiers ware,3 painted statuettes, carved oak figures, crucifixes, Madonnas, saints, church ornaments, chasubles, copes and even one or two holy vases, as well as a tabernacle conveniently vacated by the Godhead. What amazing places they were, these huge, tall houses like Aladdin’s caves crammed to bursting with all kinds of objects of seemingly finite use, but which had long survived their first owners and endured through their century, their times and fashions, to be bought as curiosities by the generations that followed!

My fondness for such things was revived in this enclave of the ancient. I went from shop to shop, crossing in two strides the little bridges made of four worm-eaten planks thrown across the evil-smelling Eau de Robec. God help me! What a frightful shock I was soon to get! On one side of a vault packed tightly with stuff and looking like the entrance to the catacombs of some furniture cemetery, what should appear before my eyes but one of my own most beautiful cupboards! I approached, trembling in every limb, so much so in fact that at first I dared not touch it. Tentatively I stretched out my hand. Yes, it was mine all right; a unique, Louis XIII piece, once seen never forgotten. Suddenly, peering into the darkest depths of this gallery I saw three of my armchairs covered in petit point, and farther on still, my two Henri II tables, such rare examples that people used to come from Paris to look at them.

Imagine! Just imagine what I felt like!

On I went nevertheless. Half-dead with fright, still I advanced. I’m brave, I’ll say that for me! Nearly paralysed with dread by now, I inched forward like a knight from the dark ages making his way through the enchanted forest. As I moved on, with every step I gradually found everything that had once belonged to me – my chandeliers, my books, my pictures, my curtains, rugs, armour, everything except the desk full of love-letters, of which there was no sign anywhere.