216 Les Miserables
CHAPTER III
FOUR AND FOUR
It is hard nowadays to picture to one’s self what a plea-
sure-trip of students and grisettes to the country was like,
forty-five years ago. The suburbs of Paris are no longer the
same; the physiognomy of what may be called circumpa-
risian life has changed completely in the last half-century;
where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car; where
there was a tender-boat, there is now the steamboat; people
speak of Fecamp nowadays as they spoke of Saint-Cloud in
those days. The Paris of 1862 is a city which has France for
its outskirts.
The four couples conscientiously went through with all
the country follies possible at that time. The vacation was
beginning, and it was a warm, bright, summer day. On the
preceding day, Favourite, the only one who knew how to
write, had written the following to Tholomyes in the name
of the four: ‘It is a good hour to emerge from happiness.’
That is why they rose at five o’clock in the morning. Then
they went to Saint-Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry
cascade and exclaimed, ‘This must be very beautiful when
there is water!’ They breakfasted at the Tete-Noir, where