These remarks which we make to initiate the reader more profoundly
into our story, were probably not made as extensively by the
guests at the table d'hote; for after bestowing a few seconds
of attention upon the new-comers, they turned their eyes away,
and the conversation, interrupted for an instant, was resumed.
It must be confessed that it concerned a matter most interesting
to the travellers--that of the stoppage of a diligence bearing
a sum of sixty thousand francs belonging to the government. The
affair had occurred the day before on the road from Marseilles
to Avignon between Lambesc and Pont-Royal.

At the first words referring to this event, the two young men
listened with unmistakable interest. It had taken place on the
same road which they had just followed, and the narrator, the
wine merchant of Bordeaux, had been one of the principal actors
in the scene on the highroad. Those who seemed the most curious
to hear the details were the travellers in the diligence which
had just arrived and was soon to depart. The other guests, who
belonged to the locality, seemed sufficiently conversant with
such catastrophes to furnish the details themselves instead of
listening to them.

"So, citizen," said a stout gentleman against whom a tall woman,
very thin and haggard, was crowding in her terror. "You say that
the robbery took place on the very road by which we have just
come?"

"Yes, citizen, between Lambesc and Pont-Royal. Did you notice
the spot where the road ascends between two high banks? There
are a great many rocks there."