I. went nearly every day to Choisy-le-Roi:
it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two o'clock, almost
invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade was seen to pass at full
speed along the Boulevard de l'Hopital.

This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the quarter
who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning to the Tuileries."

And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king
always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of
Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was
rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop;
as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly
have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe,
in the midst of naked swords. His massive coach, all covered with
gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered
noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the
rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white
satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered a l'oiseau
royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two
great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the
Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of
Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide
blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked
with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English
gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and saluted
rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind.
When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter,
the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an
inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow yonder is
the government."

This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore, the
daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hopital.

The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in the
quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as to
this detail. When, at two o'clock, the royal carriage, surrounded by a
squadron of the body-guard all covered with silver lace, debouched
on the boulevard, after having made the turn of the Salpetriere, he
appeared surprised and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in
this cr