retirement, Monsieur, be realized: if so, you will then be the happiest
man in the Republic; for during the last five or six years, there has
been no _citoyen_, high or low, who could predict what the next week
would decide for him."

The speaker uttered this with a tone of bitterness and discouragement
which contrasted strangely with the flaunting splendour of his toilet,
and the appetite with which he had done honour to the breakfast. He was
young, and would have been remarkably handsome, had not his dark eyes
and shaggy brows given an expression of fierceness and dissimulation to
his countenance, which he vainly endeavoured to hide, by never looking
his interlocutor in the face. His name was Couriol. His presence at this
breakfast was purely accidental. He had come to see M. Richard, (the
proprietor of the house where M. Guesno alighted on his journey to
Paris, and who was also one of the guests,) just as they were about to
sit down to table, and was invited to join them without ceremony.

The breakfast passed off gaily, in spite of the sombre Couriol; and
after two hours' conviviality, they adjourned to the Palais Royal,
where, after taking their cafe at the _Rotonde du Caveau_, they
separated.


II.--THE FOUR HORSEMEN.


A few days afterwards, on the 8th Floreal, four men mounted on dashing
looking horses, which, however, bore the unequivocal signs of being
hired for the day, rode gaily out of Paris by the barrier of Charenton;
talking and laughing loudly, caracoling with great enjoyment, and