Everyone knows the impression generally produced at a table d'hote
by new-comers. All eyes were bent upon them and the conversation,
which seemed to be quite animated, stopped.

The guests consisted of the frequenters of the hotel, the traveller
whose carriage was waiting harnessed at the door, a wine merchant
from Bordeaux, sojourning temporarily at Avignon for reasons we
shall shortly relate, and a certain number of travellers going
from Marseilles to Lyons by diligence.

The new arrivals greeted the company with a slight inclination of
the head, and sat down at the extreme end of the table, thereby
isolating themselves from the other guests by three or four empty
places. This seemingly aristocratic reserve redoubled the curiosity
of which they were the object; moreover, they were obviously
people of unquestionable distinction, although their garments
were simple in the extreme. Both wore hightop boots and breeches,
long-tailed coats, travelling overcoats and broad-brimmed hats,
the usual costume of the young men of that day. But that which
distinguished them from the fashionables of Paris, and even of the
provinces, was their long straight hair, and their black stocks
buckled round the neck, military fashion. The Muscadins--that
was the name then given to young dandies--the Muscadins wore
dogs' ears puffing at the temples, the rest of the hair combed
up tightly in a bag at the back, and an immense cravat with long
floating ends, in which the chin was completely buried. Some
had even extended this reaction to powder.

As to the personality of the two young men, they presented two
diametrically opposite types.