apparently with nothing but the idea of passing as joyously as possible
a day devoted to pleasure.

An attentive observer, however, who did not confine his examination to
their careless exteriors, might have remarked that, beneath their long
_levites,_ (a peculiar cloak then in fashion,) they carried each a
sabre, suspended at the waist, the presence of which was betrayed from
time to time by a slight clanking, as the horses stumbled or changed
their paces. He might have further remarked a sinister pre-occupation
and a brooding fierceness in the countenance of one, whose dark eyes
peeped out furtively beneath two thick brows. He took but little share
in the boisterous gaiety of the other three, and that little was forced;
his laugh was hollow and convulsive. It was Couriol.

Between twelve and one, the four horsemen arrived at the pretty village
of Mongeron, on the road to Melun. One of them had preceded them at a
hand-gallop to order dinner at the _Hotel de la Poste_, kept by the
Sieur Evrard. After the dinner, to which they did all honour, they
called for pipes and tobacco--(cigars were then almost unknown)--and two
of them smoked. Having paid their bill, they proceeded to the Cassino,
where they took their cafe.

At three o'clock they remounted their horses, and following the road,
shaded by stately elms, which leads from Mongeron to the forest of
Lenart, they reached Lieursaint; where they again halted. One of their
horses had cast a shoe, and one of the men had broken the little chain
which then fastened the spur to the boot. The horseman to whom this
accident had happened, stopped at the entrance of the village at Madame
Chatelain's, a _limonadiere_, whom he begged to serve him some cafe, and
at the same time to give him a needleful of strong thread to mend the