He has a charming mind." She added: "Perhaps he is a little too timid." Vence reminded her that he had told her she would find Dechartre interesting.
"I know him by heart; he has been my friend since our childhood." "You knew his parents ?" "Yes.

He is the only son of Philippe Dechartre." "The architect ?" "The architect who, under Napoleon III, restored so many castles and churches in Touraine and the Orleanais.

He had taste and knowledge.
Solitary and quiet in his life, he had the imprudence to attack Viollet-le-Duc, then all-powerful.

He reproached him with trying to reestablish buildings in their primitive plan, as they had been, or as they might have been, at the beginning.

Philippe Dechartre, on the contrary, wished that everything which the lapse of centuries had added to a church, an abbey, or a castle should be respected.