Remembering his benefactor's love for antiquities with historical associations, the grateful contractor appeared one day at Marly with this column on a dray, and insisted on erecting it where it now stands, pointing out to Sardou with pride the crowned "H," of Henri Quatre, and the entwined "M. M." of Marie de Medicis, topped by the Florentine lily in the flutings of the shaft and on the capital.
A question of mine on Sardou's manner of working led to our abandoning the gardens and mounting to the top floor of the chateau, where his enormous library and collection of prints are stored in a series of little rooms or alcoves, lighted from the top and opening on a corridor which runs the length of the building. In each room stands a writing-table and a chair; around the walls from floor to ceiling and in huge portfolios are arranged his books and engravings according to their subject. The Empire alcove, for instance, contains nothing but publications and pictures relating to that epoch. Roman and Greek history have their alcoves, as have mediaeval history and the reigns of the different Louis.
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