You are preparing yourself for war, and the first thought of a
general is to cut his enemy off from supplies. Moreover, all the walls
must be smooth, in order to present to the eye lines which may be
taken in at a glance, and permit the immediate recognition of the
least strange object. If you consult the remains of antique monuments
you will see that the beauty of Greek and Roman apartments sprang
principally from the purity of their lines, the clear sweep of their
walls and scantiness of furniture. The Greeks would have smiled in
pity, if they had seen the gaps which our closets make in our
drawing-rooms.
This magnificent system of defence should above all be put in active
operation in the apartment of your wife; never let her curtain her bed
in such a way that one can walk round it amid a maze of hangings; be
inexorable in the matter of connecting passages, and let her chamber
be at the bottom of your reception-rooms, so as to show at a glance
those who come and go.
_The Marriage of Figaro_ will no doubt have taught you to put your
wife's chamber at a great height from the ground. All celibates are
Cherubins.
Your means, doubtless, will permit your wife to have a dressing-room,
a bath-room, and a room for her chambermaid. Think then on Susanne,
and never commit the fault of arranging this little room below that of
madame's, but place it always above, and do not shrink from
disfiguring your mansion by hideous divisions in the windows.
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