44 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



to bad taste, it is too shocking to pass under the sim- 

 ple denomination of folly. Let the reader imagine 

 to himself the outside and the avenues of a noble- 

 man's country residence loaded with a prodigious 

 number of statues in stone, rudely hewn, huddled 

 together without order, and representing monsters 

 of a composition so disgusting that they cease to be 

 ridiculous. The interior is in the same style : the 

 walls of the apartments are plated with glass painted 

 into the appearance of false marble ; pieces of glass 

 which reflect the images in a thousand different 

 directions form the ceilings. There you find great 

 crucifixes, pyramids composed of cups, of saucers, 

 of coffee-pots, and of another species of vase which 

 certainly ought not to have a place in architec- 

 ture *. All these pieces are arranged in such a 

 manner, that they form an assemblage abominable 

 in the extreme. In the chapel, for example, there 

 is a group of beautiful angels, absolutely naked, 

 and of the most lively carnation ; in the midst of 

 them is a great figure in wood, of a dead man half 

 devoured by worms. It is, unfortunately, so well 

 executed as to appear natural, on the first glance. 

 I was told that several women, who had indulged 

 their curiosity in viewing this repository of absur- 

 dity the most grotesque, fainted away some of 

 them, and some with child sustained very serious 

 injury, by fixing their eyes on that truly horrible 



* Chamber-pots, 



figure, 



