Crossword-Solution: OISEAU 6 letters, 6 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 6

They had sought to get a _Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen (Rouen? thought I; and is this whole mansion, with its dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a traveller as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and orchards of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?)—they had sought to get a _Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen; but these cost fifteen francs apiece—picture it—fifteen francs! ‘_Pour un tout petit oiseau_—For quite a little bird,’ added the husband.

Tout est à lui, forêt chenue, oiseau dans l’air, poisson dans l’eau, bête an buisson, l’onde qui coule, la cloche dont le son au loin roule.’ Such was his old state of sovereignty, a local god rather than a mere king.

His preference in the matter of art was, therefore, for those prospects a vol d'oiseau--of the caged bird on the wing at last--of which Rubens had the secret, and still more Philip de Koninck, four of whose choicest works occupied the four walls of his chamber; visionary escapes, north, south, east, and west, into a wide-open though, it must be confessed, a somewhat sullen land.

Again the Lady Allegra was singing, and could I doubt that it was for me! David's "Charmant Oiseau," and then the gay little gavotte from "Manon." What an astonishing repertoire--Chaminade, Schumann, Grieg, Richard Strauss.

Not only Samson's senses, our own as well, are ravished by the delightful music:-- Voici le printemps, nous portant des fleurs Pour orner le front des guerriers vainquers! Melons nos accents aux parfums des roses A peine ecloses! Avec l'oiseau chantons, mes soeurs! [figure: a musical score excerpt sung to the words "Now Spring's generous band, Brings flowers to the land"] Dalila is here and it is become necessary to say something of her, having said so much about the man whose destruction she accomplished.