the embankment at the foot of the
tower itself,--a work that was somewhat like that of the soldiers who
carried the artillery over the pass of the Grand Saint-Bernard. The cart
was then remounted on its wheels, and the Knights, by this time hungry
and thirsty, returned to Mere Cognette's, where they were soon seated
round the table in the low room, laughing at the grimaces Fario would
make when he came after his barrow in the morning.

The Knights, naturally, did not play such capers every night. The genius
of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed
to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In
the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the
moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters;
then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed
outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at
Mere Cognette's every night, they always met during the day, enjoying
together the legitimate pleasures of hunting, or the autumn vintages and
the winter skating. Among this assemblage of twenty youths, all of them
at war with the social somnolence of the place, there are some who were
more closely allied than others to Max, and who made him their idol. A
character like his often fascinates other youths. The two grandsons of
Madame Hochon--Francois Hochon and Baruch Borniche--were his henchmen.
These young fellows, accepting the general opinion of the left-handed
parentage of Lousteau, looked upon Max as their cousin. Max, moreover,
was liberal in lending them money for their pleasures, which their
grandfather Hochon refused; he took them hunting, let them see life, and
exercised a much greater influence over them than their own family.
They were both orphans, and were kept, although each had attained his
majority, under the guardianship of Monsieur Hochon, for reasons which
will be explained when Monsieur Hochon himself comes upon the scene.

At this particular moment Francois and Baruch (we will call them by
their Christian names for the sake of clearness) were sitting, one on
each side of Max, at the middle of a table that was rather ill lighted
by the fuliginous gleams of four tallow candles of eight to the pound. A
dozen to fifteen bottles of various wines had just been drunk, for only
eleven of the Knights were present. Baruch--whose name indicates pretty
clearly that Calvinism still kept so