y these last massacres, that we now introduce two of the
principal personages of our story.

CHAPTER I. A TABLE D'HOTE

The 9th of October, 1799, on a beautiful day of that meridional autumn
which ripens the oranges of Hyeres and the grapes of Saint-Peray, at the
two extremities of Provence, a travelling chaise, drawn by three post
horses, galloped at full speed over the bridge that crosses the Durance,
between Cavailhon and Chateau-Renard, on its way to Avignon, the ancient
papal city which a decree, issued the 25th of May, 1791, eight years
earlier, had reunited to France--a reunion confirmed by the treaty
signed in 1797, at Tolentino, between General Bonaparte and Pope Pius
VI.

The carriage entered by the gate of Aix and, without slackening speed,
traversed the entire length of the town, with its narrow, winding
streets, built to ward off both wind and sun, and halted at fifty paces
from the Porte d'Oulle, at the Hotel du Palais-Egalite, which they were
again beginning to quietly rename the Hotel du Palais-Royal, a name
which it bore formerly and still bears to-day.

These few insignificant words about the name of the inn, before which
halted the post-chaise which we had in view, indicate sufficiently well
the state of France under the government of the Thermidorian reaction,
called the Directory.

After the revolutionary struggle which had occurred between the 14th of
July, 1789, and the 9th Thermidor, 1794; after the days of the 5th and
6th of October, of the 21st of June, of the 10th of August, of the 2d
and 3d of September, of the 21st of May, of the 29th Thermidor and the
1st Prairial; after seeing fall the heads of the King and his judges,
and the Queen and her accusers, of the Girondins and the Cordeliers, the
Moderates and the Jacobins, France experienced that most frightful and
most nauseous of all lassitudes, the lassitude of blood!

She had therefore returned, if not to a need of monarchy, at least to a
desire for a stable government, in which she might place her confidence,
upon which she might lean, which would act for her, and which would
permit her some repose while it acted.

In the stead of this vaguely desired government, the country obtained
the feeble and irresolute Directory, composed for the moment of the
voluptuous Barres, the intriguing Sieyes, the brave Moulins, the
insignificant Roger Ducos, and the honest but somewhat too ingenuous
Gohier. The result was a mediocre dignity be