her.

"Such women always run in couples," said Hulot.

A lean and sharp-looking little man ambled his horse sometimes before,
sometimes behind the carriage; but, though he was evidently accompanying
these privileged women, no one had yet seen him speak to them. This
silence, a proof either of respect or contempt, as the case might be;
the quantity of baggage belonging to the lady, whom the commandant
sneeringly called "the princess"; everything, even to the clothes of her
attendant squire, stirred Hulot's bile. The dress of the unknown man
was a good specimen of the fashions of the day then being caricatured as
"incroyable,"--unbelievable, unless seen. Imagine a person trussed up in
a coat, the front of which was so short that five or six inches of the
waistcoat came below it, while the skirts were so long that they hung
down behind like the tail of a cod,--the term then used to describe
them. An enormous cravat was wound about his neck in so many folds that
the little head which protruded from that muslin labyrinth certainly did
justify Captain Merle's comparison. The stranger also wore tight-fitting
trousers and Suwaroff boots. A huge blue-and-white cameo pinned his
shirt; two watch-chains hung from his belt; his hair, worn in ringlets
on each side of his face, concealed nearly the whole forehead; and, for
a last adornment, the collar of his shirt and that of his coat came so
high that his head seemed enveloped like a bunch of flowers in a horn of
paper. Add to these queer accessories, which were combined in utter want
of harmony, the burlesque contradictions in color of yellow trousers,
scarlet waistcoat, cinnamon coat, and a correct idea will be gained of
the supreme good taste which all dandies blindly obeyed in the first
years of the Consulate. This costume, utterly uncouth, seemed to have
been invented as a final test of grace, and to show that there was
nothing too ridiculous for fashion to consecrate. The rider seemed to
be about thirty years old, but he was really twenty-two; perhaps he
owed this appearance of age to debauchery, possibly to the perils of the
period. In spite of his preposterous dress, he had a certain elegance of
manner which proved him to be a man of some breeding.

When the captain had dropped back close to the carriage, the dandy
seemed to fathom his design, and favored it by checking his horse.
Merle, who had flung him a sardonic glance, encountered one of those
impenetrable faces, train