This man had the air of a person who is seeking lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau.
We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber in that isolated quarter.
This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type of what may be called the well-bred mendicant,--extreme wretchedness combined with extreme cleanliness.
This is a very rare mixture which inspires intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels for the man who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He wore a very old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn perfectly threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the least eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a venerable cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee, stockings of black worsted; and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been pronounced a preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration.
He would have been taken for more than sixty years of age, from his perfectly white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and his countenance, where everything breathed depression and weariness of life.
Judging from his firm tread, from the singular vigor which stamped all his movements, he would have hardly been thought fifty.
The wrinkles on his brow were well placed, and would have disposed in his favor any one who observed him attentively.
His lip contracted with a strange fold which seemed severe, and which was humble.
There was in the depth of his glance an indescribable melancholy serenity. In his left hand he carried a little bundle tied up in a handkerchief; in his right he leaned on a sort of a cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and had an air that was not too threatening; the most had been made of its knots, and it had received a coral-like head, made from red wax:
it was a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane.
There are but few passers-by on that boulevard, particularly in the winter.
The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them, but this without any affectation.
At that epoch, King Louis XVIII.
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.