The traveler,
an old man, after looking about him hesitatingly for a moment or
two, betook himself to a little inn opposite the post-house,
known by the sign of the Piebald Horse, and kept by the Widow
Duval--a woman who enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being
the fastest talker and the best maker of _gibelotte_ in the whole
locality.
Although the traveler was carelessly noticed by the village
idlers, and received without ceremony by the Widow Duval, he was
by no means so ordinary and uninteresting a stranger as the
rustics of the place were pleased to consider him. The time had
been when this quiet, elderly, unobtrusive applicant for
refreshment at the Piebald House was trusted with the darkest
secrets of the Reign of Terror, and was admitted at all times and
seasons to speak face to face with Maximilian Robespierre
himself. The Widow Duval and the hangers-on in front of the
post-house would have been all astonished indeed if any
well-informed personage from the metropolis had been present to
tell them that the modest old traveler with the shabby little
carpet-bag was an ex-chief agent of the secret police of Paris!
Between three and four years had elapsed since Lomaque had
exercised, for the last time, his official functions under the
Reign of Terror. His shoulders had contracted an extra stoop, and
his hair had all fallen off, except at the sides and back of his
head.
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