she added, "when Monsieur Gourdon, the poet, is
present."

"There's social morality!" said the abbe, who had heard and observed all
without saying a word.

After this epigram, or rather, this satire on the company, so true and
so concise that it hit every one, the usual game of boston was proposed.

Is not this a picture of life as it is at all stages of what we agree to
call society? Change the style, and you will find that nothing more and
nothing less is said in the gilded salons of Paris.

CHAPTER III. THE CAFE DE LA PAIX

It was about seven o'clock when Rigou drove by the Cafe de la Paix. The
setting sun, slanting its beams across the little town, was diffusing
its ruddy tints, and the clear mirror of the lake contrasted with the
flashing of the resplendent window-panes, which originated the strangest
and most improbable colors.

The deep schemer, who had grown pensive as he revolved his plots, let
his horse proceed so slowly that in passing the Cafe de la Paix he
heard his own name banded about in one of those noisy disputes which,
according to the Abbe Taupin, made the name of the establishment a
gain-saying of its customary condition.

For a clear understanding of the following scene we must explain the
topography of this region of plenty and of misrule, which began with the
cafe on the square, and ended on the country road with the famous Tivoli
where the conspirators proposed to entrap the general. The ground-floor
of the cafe, which stood at the angle of the square and the road, and
was built in the style of Rigou's house, had three windows on the
road and two on the square, the latter being separated by a glass door
through which the house was entered. The cafe had, moreover, a double
door which opened on a side alley that separated it from the neighboring
house (that of Vallet the Soulanges mercer), which led to an inside
courtyard.

The house, which was painted wholly in yellow, except the blinds, which
were green, is one of the few houses in the little town which has two
stories and an attic. And this is why: Before the astonishing rise in
the prosperity of Ville-aux-Fayes the first floor of this house, which
had four chambers, each containing a bed and the meagre furniture
thought necessary to justify the term "furnished lodgings," was let to
strangers who were obliged to come to Soulanges on matters connected
with the courts, or to visitors who did not sleep at the chateau; but
for the