Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843 - Various - Страница 3

A few days afterwards, on the 8th Floréal, 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 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 lévites, (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 Hôtel 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 café.

At three o'clock they remounted their horses, and following the road, shaded by stately elms, which leads from Mongeron to the forest of Lénart, 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 Châtelain's, a limonadière, whom he begged to serve him some café, and at the same time to give him a needleful of strong thread to mend the chain of his spur. She did so, but observing the traveller to be rather awkward in his use of the needle, she called her servant, la femme Grossetète, who fixed the chain for him, and helped him to place it on his boot. The other three travellers had, during this time, alighted at the inn kept by the Sieur Champeaux, where they drank some wine; while the landlord himself accompanied the traveller and his unshod horse to the farrier's, the Sieur Motteau. This finished, the four met at Madame Châtelain's, where they played at billiards. At half-past seven, after a parting cup with the Sieur Champeaux, whither they returned to re-saddle their horses, they set off again in the direction of Melun.

The landlord stood at his door watching the travellers till out of sight, and then turning into his house again, he saw on the table a sabre, which one of his guests had forgotten to fasten to his belt; he dispatched one of his stable-boys after them, but they were out of sight. It was not till an hour afterwards, that the traveller who had had his spur-chain mended, returned at full gallop to claim his sabre. He drank a glass of brandy, and having fastened his weapon securely, departed at furious speed in the direction taken by his comrades.