fore the world at large and
a very questionable tranquillity at home.

It is true that at the moment of which we write our armies, so glorious
during those epic campaigns of 1796 and 1797, thrown back for a time
upon France by the incapacity of Scherer at Verona and Cassano, and by
the defeat and death of Joubert at Novi, were beginning to resume
the offensive. Moreau had defeated Souvarow at Bassignano; Brune had
defeated the Duke of York and General Hermann at Bergen; Massena had
annihilated the Austro-Russians at Zurich; Korsakof had escaped only
with the greatest difficulty; the Austrian, Hotz, with three other
generals, were killed, and five made prisoners. Massena saved France at
Zurich, as Villars, ninety years earlier, had saved it at Denain.

But in the interior, matters were not in so promising a state, and the
government of the Directory was, it must be confessed, much embarrassed
between the war in the Vendee and the brigandages of the Midi, to which,
according to custom, the population of Avignon were far from remaining
strangers.

Beyond doubt the two travellers who descended from the carriage at the
door of the Hotel du Palais-Royal had reason to fear the state of mind
in which the always excitable papal town might be at that time; for just
before reaching Orgon, at a spot where three crossroads stretched out
before the traveller--one leading to Nimes, the second to Carpentras,
the third to Avignon--the postilion had stopped his horses, and, turning
round, asked:

"Will the citizens go by way of Avignon or Carpentras?"

"Which of the two roads is the shorter?" asked the elder of the two
travellers in a harsh, strident voice. Though visibly the elder, he was
scarcely thirty years of age.

"Oh, the road to Avignon, citizen, by a good four miles at least."

"Then," he had replied, "go by way of Avignon."

And the carriage had started again at a gallop, which proclaimed that
the citizen travellers, as the postilion called them, although the title
of Monsieur was beginning to reappear in conversation, paid a fee of at
least thirty sous.

The same desire to lose no time manifested itself at the hotel entrance.
There, as on the road, it was the elder of the two travellers who spoke.
He asked if they could dine at once, and the way this demand was made
indicated that he was ready to overlook many gastronomical exigencies
provided that the repast in question be promptly served.

"Citizens," replied the