held its way steadily on towards a solid prosperity.

It was not an immense fortune that Cropole had in perspective; but he
might hope to double the thousand louis d'or left by his father, to make
another thousand louis by the sale of his house and stock, and at length
to live happily like a retired citizen.

Cropole was anxious for gain, and was half-crazy with joy at the news of
the arrival of Louis XIV.

Himself, his wife, Pittrino, and two cooks, immediately laid hands
upon all the inhabitants of the dove-cote, the poultry-yard, and the
rabbit-hutches; so that as many lamentations and cries resounded in the
yards of the hostelry of the Medici as were formerly heard in Rama.

Cropole had, at the time, but one single traveler in his house.

This was a man of scarcely thirty years of age, handsome, tall, austere,
or rather melancholy, in all his gestures and looks.

He was dressed in black velvet with jet trimmings; a white collar, as
plain as that of the severest Puritan, set off the whiteness of his
youthful neck; a small dark-colored mustache scarcely covered his
curled, disdainful lip.

He spoke to people looking them full in the face without affectation, it
is true, but without scruple; so that the brilliancy of his black eyes
became so insupportable, that more than one look had sunk beneath his
like the weaker sword in a single combat.

At this time, in which men, all created equal by God, were divided,
thanks to prejudices, into two distinct castes, the gentleman and the
commoner, as they are really divided into two races, the black and the
white,--at this time, we say, he whose portrait we have just sketched
could not fail of being taken for a gentleman, and of the best class.
To ascertain this, there was no necessity to consult anything but his
hands, long, slender, and white, of which every muscle, every vein,
became apparent through the skin at the least movement, and eloquently
spoke of good descent.

This gentleman, then, had arrived alone at Cropole's house. He had
taken, without hesitation, without reflection even, the principal
apartment which the hotelier had pointed out to him with a rapacious
aim, very praiseworthy, some will say, very reprehensible will say
others, if they admit that Cropole was a physiognomist and judged people
at first sight.

This apartment was that which composed the whole front of the ancient
triangular house, a large salon, lighted by two windows on the first
stage