Fouvenard was the only one of the party who had not yet narrated his little adventure. Dupréval, our host, turned to that gentleman, whose features, the nose alone excepted, were buried beneath the wilderness of beard, moustache, whiskers, and eyebrows, which invaded his face and threatened to transform it into a wig. Monsieur Fouvenard passed his hand across his forehead and ran it through his mane, as he said: "I have been looking over my catalogue, but I haven't succeeded in disentangling anything as yet. And so, messieurs, I propose to tell you the story of my last love affair; it is still quite fresh. It is not my last _bonne fortune_, but it is the most entertaining, I think, of the later ones; you may judge for yourselves. "Two or three months ago, having nothing to do one Sunday, and being unable to endure the day in Paris, which, as you all know, messieurs, is insufferable on Sunday, especially when it's fine; for then the streets and boulevards are overrun by a crowd of people with outlandish faces, walking arm in arm, four or five and sometimes six in a row, and making it as tiresome to walk as it is difficult--in a word, I jumped aboard a train in the first railway station I came to, without so much as inquiring where it would take me. I believe I would have travelled a long distance--to Belgium, perhaps--I was so disgusted with Paris that Sunday! But the train I took did not go so far; my journey was very brief, and I soon found myself in the pretty village of Sceaux. When I say _village_, I am wrong, for Sceaux is a small town; but the instant that I see trees and fields and green grass, I cannot believe that I am near a town.