of tumult and
disorder had easily enlisted under the flag of the warlike Wolves. Such
then was the dull fermentation, which agitated the little village of
Villiers, whilst the two men of whom we have spoken were at table in the
public-house.

These men had asked for a private room, that they might be alone. One of
them was still young, and pretty well dressed. But the disorder in his
clothes, his loose cravat, his shirt spotted with wine, his dishevelled
hair, his look of fatigue, his marble complexion, his bloodshot eyes,
announced that a night of debauch had preceded this morning; whilst
his abrupt and heavy gesture, his hoarse voice, his look, sometimes
brilliant, and sometimes stupid, proved that to the last fumes of the
intoxication of the night before, were joined the first attacks of a
new state of drunkenness. The companion of this man said to him, as he
touched his glass with his own: "Your health, my boy!"

"Yours!" answered the young man; "though you look to me like the devil."

"I!--the devil?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"How did you come to know me?"

"Do you repent that you ever knew me?"

"Who told you that I was a prisoner at Sainte-Pelagie?"

"Didn't I take you out of prison?"

"Why did you take me out?"

"Because I have a good heart."

"You are very fond of me, perhaps--just as the butcher likes the ox that
he drives to the slaughter-house."

"Are you mad?"

"A man does not pay a hundred thousand francs for another without a
motive."

"I have a motive."

"What is it? what do you want to do with me?"

"A jolly companion that will spend his money like a man, and pass every
night like the last. Good wine, good cheer, pretty girls, and gay songs.
Is that such a bad trade?"

After he had remained a moment without answering, the young man replied
with a gloomy air: "Why, on the eve of my leaving prison, did you attach
this condition to my freedom, that I should write to my mistress to tell
her that I would never see her again! Why did you exact this letter from
me?"

"A sigh! what, are you still thinking of her?"

"Always."

"You are wrong. Your mistress is far from Paris by this time. I saw
her get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of Sainte
Pelagie."

"Yes, I was stifled in that prison. To get out, I would have given my
soul to the devil. You thought so, and therefore you came to me; only,
instead of my soul, you took Cephyse from me. Poor Bacchanal-Queen! And
why