only. All the inhabitants know each other; they even know the
commercial travellers who come, now and then, on business from the
large Parisian houses. Thus, as in all provincial towns in a like
position, a stranger, if he stayed two days, would wag the tongues and
excite the imaginations of the whole community without his name or his
business being known.

Now, Arcis being still in a state of tranquillity three days before
the morning when, by the will of the creator of so many histories, the
present tale begins, there was seen to arrive by the county road a
stranger, driving a handsome tilbury drawn by a valuable horse, and
accompanied by a tiny groom, no bigger than my fist, mounted on a
saddle-horse. The coach, connecting with the diligences to Troyes, had
brought from La Belle Etoile three trunks coming from Paris, marked
with no name, but belonging to this stranger, who took up his quarters
at the Mulet inn. Every one in Arcis supposed, on the first evening,
that this personage had come with the intention of buying the estate
of Arcis; and much was said in all households about the future owner
of the chateau. The tilbury, the traveller, his horses, his servant,
one and all appeared to belong to a man who had dropped upon Arcis
from the highest social sphere.

The stranger, no doubt fatigued, did not show himself for a time;
perhaps he spent part of the day in arranging himself in the rooms he
had chosen, announcing his intention of staying a certain time. He
requested to see the stable where his horses were to be kept, showed
himself very exacting, and insisted that they should be placed in
stalls apart from those of the innkeeper's horses, and from those of
guests who might come later. In consequence of such singular demands,
the landlord of the hotel du Mulet considered his guest to be an