Erected at the time when Henri II and Diane de Poitiers turned the sober city into one of licentious dalliance, it had cheered the wayfarer during four generations.

It was three stories high, constructed of stone, gabled and balconied, with a roof which resembled an assortment of fanciful noses.

Here and there the brown walls were lightened by patches of plaster and sea-cobble; for though the buildings in the Rue du Palais had stood in the shelter of the walls and fortifications, few had been exempt from Monseigneur the Cardinal's iron compliments to the Huguenots.
Swinging on an iron bar which projected from the porticoed entrance, and supported by two grimacing cherubs, once daintily pink, but now verging on rubicundity, a change due either to the vicissitudes of the weather or to the close proximity to the wine-cellars,--was a horn of plenty, the pristine glory of which had also departed.

This invitation often excited the stranger's laughter; but the Rochellais themselves never laughed at it, for to them it represented a familiar object, which, however incongruous or ridiculous, is always dear to the human heart.

At night a green lantern was attached to the horn.