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Her first exploit, which cost her immense effort and established her authority, was the packing of the carpets. The count had valuable Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house. When Natasha set to work two cases were standing open in the ballroom, one almost full up with crockery, the other with carpets.
There had been sent from the storehouse of the crown a large quantity of magnificent furniture, carpets and tapestry, both Gobelin and la Savonnerie; bronzes, lusters, candelabras, girondoles, Sevres china; in fine, everything which could contribute to the luxurious furnishing of the two Imperial palaces, and those which were to be occupied by the other sovereigns; and a crowd of workmen came from Paris.
The interior at the first view has a most striking effect; one hundred and twenty pillars supporting a range of arches afford a most splendid coup d'oeil, the middle aisle presenting an uninterrupted view of the whole church, which being very lofty has a most majestic appearance; the sumptuous altar, the fine gloom pervading the pictures, the curious Gobelin tapestry which decorate the sides, combine in affording a rich effect which is still heightened by the chapels which are perceptible between the columns.
From this main hall branched off on either side the long series of state-rooms, poorly furnished with high-backed chairs and long queer Venice glasses, when first I came to the property; but afterwards rendered so splendid by me, with the gold damasks of Lyons and the magnificent Gobelin tapestries I won from Richelieu at play.
Furniture of all epochs heterogeneously clumped together, here a sofa /a la renaissance/ in Gobelin; there a rosewood Console from Gillow; a tall mock-Elizabethan chair in black oak, by the side of a modern Florentine table of Mosaic marbles; all kinds of colours in the room, and all at war with each other; very bad copies of the best-known pictures in the world in the most gaudy frames, and impudently labelled by the names of their murdered originals, "Raphael," "Corregio," "Titian," "Sebastian del Piombo."
The Gobelin and Beauvais Tapestry Works produced their wonderful series of tapestries, and Boulle inlay of brass and tortoise shell was lavished on furniture, and the ormolu mounts were beautiful and elaborate. All workmanship was of the highest.
He was generous and kind-hearted, but despotic, and conceited to the most ludicrous degree: for instance, he thought he could work gobelin tapestry and play on the harp or mandolin better than any one living.
Our artisans produce no Gobelin tapestries or Sèvres porcelain as yet; but when your mobs have looted the Tuileries, our shopkeepers have bought up enough specimens to serve them as patterns by-and-by. All this is something for a nation which has hardly pulled up the stumps out of its city market-places.
Some of the furniture was Buhl, some French. There were hangings that looked like loot from the Pekin Summer Palace, and tapestry from Gobelin.
A real sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked to see it.
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