Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 3).djvu/205

 

T first sight the exterior of the house at Auteuil presented nothing splendid, nothing one would expect from the destined residence of the magnificent Count of Monte-Cristo; but this simplicity was but according to the will of its master, who positively ordered nothing to be altered outside; this was seen by examining the interior.

Indeed, scarcely could the door be opened before the scene changed. M. Bertuccio had outdone himself in the taste displayed in furnishing, and in the rapidity with which it was executed. As formerly the Duc d'Antin had in a single night caused a whole avenue of trees to be cut down that annoyed Louis XIV., so in three days had M. Bertuccio planted an entirely bare court with poplars, large spreading sycamores shading the different parts of the house, before which, instead of the usual paving-stones, half hidden by the grass, there extended a turf lawn but that morning laid down, and upon which the water was yet glistening. For the rest, the orders had been issued by the count; he himself had given a plan to Bertuccio, marking the spot where each tree was to be planted, and the shape and extent of the lawn which was to succeed the paving-stones.

Thus the house had become unrecognizable, and Bertuccio himself declared he scarcely knew it, encircled, as it was, by a frame-work of trees. The overseer would not have objected, while he was about it, to have made some improvements in the garden, but the count had positively forbidden it to be touched. Bertuccio made amends, however, by loading the antechambers, staircases, and chimneys with flowers.

That which, above all, manifested the shrewdness of the steward and the profound science of the master, the one in carrying out the