Their owners, exhausted by the expense of maintaining them, were more than anxious to sell.

So he bought the castle of Villeblanche-sur-Marne, built in the time of the religious wars--a mixture of palace and fortress with an Italian Renaissance facade, gloomy towers with pointed hoods, and moats in which swans were swimming.
He could now live with some tracts of land over which to exercise his authority, struggling again with the resistance of men and things.
Besides, the vast proportions of the rooms of the castle were very tempting and bare of furniture.

This opportunity for placing the overflow from his cellars plunged him again into buying.

With this atmosphere of lordly gloom, the antiques would harmonize beautifully, without that cry of protest which they always seemed to make when placed in contact with the glaring white walls of modern habitations.

The historic residence required an endless outlay; on that account it had changed owners so many times.
But he and the land understood each other beautifully.