The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1890-05-23

tine guns OF the Moblots. Everywhere the
creak and crash of falling timber, the
scream of dying beast or bird. There, where
the gay procession of carriages used to cir
culate in the afternoon sunlight, were now
Loneliness and ruin; here and there a few
scattered plumes, white on the greensward,
showed where death had been; here and
there the thick black smoke, and ftful
flame, marked a newly fired thicket.
Paris was a camp, and every citizen q
soldier. But the soldiers duty was neither
onerous nor varied at this period. There
was the morning rendezvous from seven TO
eight, the day and night watch on the ram
parts, short slulnbers under canvas, for the
easements which were to shelter these
heroes later on were not yet built.
Among these soldiers of the National
Guard Philip Durand and Castor Mortemar
were both numbered. The charmed life of
ihe newly welded was over. The domestic
hearth was lonely. The husband could only
return to his home in the intervals of his
service as a defender of his city. And the
wife was full of fear in her lonely home, or
| prowling in the neishboring streets on some
small household errand, lettering with other
| wives on doorStepS or at street corners, de-
vouring the last news from the ramparts.
Trade was at a standstill. Each National
| Guard had his allowance of a franc and a
| half a day, with a small sum for wife or
| family; but 1t wa almost impossible for him
to carry on any handicraft during this reign
| of chassepot and Remington. Some there
were-the few, the elect among workers
| who contrived to accomplish something III
their brief respite from soldering; and
among these was Durand. His employer
had shut up his factory. What good was
| there in creating articles of ~lGXury-artistic
cabinets q Ia Renaissance, writing-tables d
la DubaHy, commodes a Ia Maintenon,
what use in initiating the finest works OF
Buhi and Reisnier, when the city was girt
with iron, and might ere long be girt with
fire? when at any evil hour, as yet unmark'
ed upon the calendar, q bomb might explode
in the middle of the factory, and send Buhl
and Reisnier, delicate inlaid-work, ormolt
aud cherry-wood, pear-tree and ebony, i'll {
shower of splinters through the shattered
roof? The proprietor slowed away hi
choicest woods in his cellars, and locked III
his warehouses and workshops. NJ ~c>2
could be exported from a Dlockaded city
and in the city there were no purchasers O
art furniture.
But this did not constrain Durand TO In,
aside his gougcs and chisels. Before hi
marriage he had brought home to his it'll
workshop some fine pieces of old wood, col
lected in various hooks and corners of Pari
ar oak panel from the wreckage OF
church, an old walnut sideboard, thick
heavy, clumsy, but o, so well seasoned an
richly colored, from a sixteenth centur
house in the Marais-and with treasure
such as these to his hand Philip Durand ha
no lack of work. He had undertaken
maqnum opus in the shape Of a sheboart
which in design and workmanship was t
surpass anything that had yet been done i
the factory where he was chief workman
All his knowledge of the masterpieces i
carved oak, all his taste and skill wei
brought to bear upon this piece of furnitur,
l Ills long Sunday afternoons in the Louvr
! his study of the art-books in the Imperi;
1 Library, all helped him in his handicraf
jacques Mollin, his friend the painter, W;
. at his elbow to make suggestions while II
drawings for the sideboard were in progres
a The mighty dead had their part in the wor
! This tangle of fruit and flowers on the CO
nice owed something to Van Huysum. I'll
heap of wild fowl and hares, flung as
we're hap-hazard against q lower panel, W
i a so,ucnir of Snyders. Everywhere Il
mind of the artist informed the hand of Il
craftsman. And the sideboard was as Il
: apple of Philip Durand's eye. 1t was su
: to bring him money, which he cared for on
for the AXE of his wife and his home;
| might bring him fame. which he valued f
his own sake, and still more for Rose, WI
> would be proud by and by to say, u did II
marry a common workman"
u ITO be Continued1