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Updated: May 27, 2025
With thoughts of this nature, I assumed my steadiest demeanour ordered my breakfast in the most orthodox fashion eat it like a man in his senses; and when I threw myself back in the wicker conveniency they call a caleche, and bid adieu to Kehl, the whole fraternity of the inn would have given me a certificate of sanity before any court in Europe.
I had not been there since last August. How changed it was! The broad Avenue de l'Imperatrice, where the lovely Empress drove every day in her caleche a la Daumont, surrounded by the magnificent Cent Gardes, is now almost impossible to drive in. The trees are cut down, and the roads full of ditches and stones.
Paul Gaillard had ventured once to whisper something to Le Gardeur about sending his caleche to the Manor House, hoping that his youthful master would consent to be driven home. But his proposal was met by a wild laugh from Le Gardeur and a good-humored expulsion from the room.
Then the next day and the days that came after were other wretched stages of that journey; the Chateau of Bellevue, a pretty bourgeois retreat overlooking the river, where he rested that night, where he shed tears after his interview with King William; the sorrowful departure, that most miserable flight in a hired caleche over remote roads to the north of the city, which he avoided, not caring to face the wrath of the vanquished troops and the starving citizens, making a wide circuit over cross-roads by Floing, Fleigneux, and Illy and crossing the stream on a bridge of boats, laid down by the Prussians at Iges; the tragic encounter, the story of which has been so often told, that occurred on the corpse-cumbered plateau of Illy: the miserable Emperor, whose state was such that his horse could not be allowed to trot, had sunk under some more than usually violent attack of his complaint, mechanically smoking, perhaps, his everlasting cigarette, when a band of haggard, dusty, blood-stained prisoners, who were being conducted from Fleigneux to Sedan, were forced to leave the road to let the carriage pass and stood watching it from the ditch; those who were at the head of the line merely eyed him in silence; presently a hoarse, sullen murmur began to make itself heard, and finally, as the caleche proceeded down the line, the men burst out with a storm of yells and cat-calls, shaking their fists and calling down maledictions on the head of him who had been their ruler.
At regular intervals along the road the traveller found post-houses, where the post-master kept four vehicles in readiness: in summer the calèche, a one-horse chaise built for two passengers, with a footboard seat for the driver and with the body hung by broad leather straps or thongs of bull's hide; in winter the carriole, or sledge, with or without covered top, also holding two passengers and a driver.
In a cloud of dust an open caleche was speeding towards them, coming from the Bois. They watched it, both pale, neither venturing to speak, Aline, indeed, without breath to do so. As it approached, it slowed down, perforce, as they did, to effect a safe passage in that narrow road.
Suddenly the glances of Don Vegal rested on a young girl, enveloped in a black mantle, reclining in a calêche. "Who is that beautiful person?" asked he of the father. "It is the betrothed of André Certa, the daughter of the Jew Samuel." "She! the daughter of the Jew!"
In an avenue of the Bois de Boulogne they met a caleche; Mme. d'Espard and Mme. de Bargeton looked in surprise at Lucien, and met a scornful glance from the poet. He saw glimpses of a great future before him, and was about to make his power felt. He could fling them back in a glance some of the revengeful thoughts which had gnawed his heart ever since they planted them there.
"How is it," resumed André Certa, "that I, the son of a merchant, can ride only in a calêche drawn by mules? Have not my ships brought wealth and prosperity to the country? Is not the aristocracy of piasters worth all the titles of Spain?" "It is a shame!" resumed the young mestizo. "There is Don Fernand, who passes in his carriage drawn by two horses! Don Fernand d'Aiquillo!
On a fine spring morning a caleche and a coupe, drawn by Limousin horses chosen by Monsieur Grossetete, drew up at eleven o'clock before the shop of the iron-dealer, bringing, to the great excitement of the neighborhood, the former partners of the bridegroom and the latter's two clerks.
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