"
"He's the true French soldier," said Hulot, in a grave tone.
"Just look at him pulling his epaulets back to his shoulders, to show
he is a captain," cried Gerard, laughing,--"as if his rank mattered!"
The coach toward which the officer was pivoting did, in fact, contain
two women, one of whom seemed to be the servant of the other.
"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.
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