Without knowing why, Master René Servet was a royalist. Thanks to the distance which stretched between Nantua and all the great centres of civilization, thanks also to the mild temperament of its inhabitants, Master René Servet had passed through the Revolution without being in the least molested for his opinions, well-known though they were.
It must be confessed, though, that the worthy man had done all in his power to invite persecution. Not only had he retained the name of the Dauphin for his inn, but on the tail of the fantastic fish on his sign-board, a tail which protruded insolently from the water, he had drawn the profile of the poor little prince, who had remained shut up for four years and who had died, shortly after the Thermidorean reaction, in the prison of the Temple.
Therefore all those who for sixty miles round the inn of the Dragon—and their number was great—shared the opinions of René Servet, did not fail to patronize his inn, and would not have consented to go elsewhere.
It was not astonishing, therefore, that a post-chaise having to stop at Nantua should leave its passengers rather at the aristocratic inn of the Dragon than at its democratic rival, the Boule d'Or.
At the sound of the chaise, although it was barely five in the morning, René Servet leaped out of bed, and putting on his drawers, a pair of white stockings, list slippers, and a great bath-robe over his shoulders, and holding his cotton cap in his hand, reached the doorstep just as a beautiful young woman of twenty or thereabout descended from the chaise.
She was dressed in black, and in spite of her youth and great beauty she was travelling alone.
She replied with a nod to René Servet's obsequious salutation, and, without paying any attention to his offers of service, asked him if he had a good room in his house with a dressing-room. Master René mentioned No. 7 on the first floor as the best he had.
The young lady hastened impatiently to the wooden placard where the keys were hanging from a frame and took down her key herself.
"Sir," said she, "will you be good enough to show me to my room? I want to ask you some questions. You can send the chambermaid to me when you go down."
René Servet bowed almost to the floor and hastened to obey. He went first and the young lady followed. When they reached the room she closed the door behind them, and, as she seated herself, she addressed the landlord, who remained standing.