I set off next morning with instructions to return the same evening, at all costs.
Besides the pleasure of the ride, there was yet another attraction for me at Crespy; I should be able to call and see once more that worthy family from whom we had received hospitality at the time of the invasion and also my friends the de Longprés.
I have related Madame de Longpré's story. She was the widow of a groom of the bedchamber to King Louis XV. She had gradually sold all her magnificent china, inherited from her husband. Her oldest son was a quartermaster in the chasseurs, a brave fellow all round, but one who would shake with fear and hide himself under the bed when there was a thunderstorm.
I set off, promising to return as quickly as possible: and I kept my word scrupulously.
First of all, I fulfilled my commission to Me. Leroux; then, when that was over, I began my calls.
I remounted my horse at seven in the evening, and started on my homeward way.
It was the month of September. The days were visibly becoming shorter; and, as the weather was gloomy on that particular evening, and almost raining, it was already dark when I set off from Crespy and put spur to my horse.
The road between Villers-Cotterets and Crespy, or rather from Crespy to Villers-Cotterets—to be topographically accurate in our descriptions—is almost a highroad, but nearly deserted by business traffic; half-way between Crespy and Villers-Cotterets it rejoins the highroad from Villers-Cotterets to Paris, describing a huge Y by its divergence.
A quarter of a league from Crespy, a portion of forest, called the Tillet Wood, extends to the roadside, but does not cross to the other side.