After breakfast the four couples went to see, in what was then called the King's Square, a plant newly arrived from the Indies, whose name we have forgotten, but which at that time attracted all Paris to St. Cloud; it was a strange and pretty shrub, whose numerous branches, fine as threads and leafless, were covered with a million of small white flowers giving it the appearance of a head of hair swarming with flowers; there was always a crowd round it, admiring it. After inspecting the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, "I will pay for donkeys;" and after making a bargain with the donkey-man, they returned by Vauvres and Issy. At the latter place an incident occurred; the park, a national estate held at this time by Bourguin the contractor, was accidentally open. They passed through the gates, visited the wax hermit in his grotto, and tried the mysterious effect of the famous cabinet of mirrors, a lascivious trap, worthy of a satyr who had become a millionnaire. They bravely pulled the large swing, fastened to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis. While swinging the ladies in turn, which produced, amid general laughter, a flying of skirts by which Greuze would have profited, the Toulousian Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, as Toulouse is the cousin of Tolosa, sang to a melancholy tune the old gallega, which was probably inspired by the sight of a pretty girl swinging between two trees,-- "Soy tie Badajoz Amor me llama Toda mi alma Es en mis ojos Porque enseflas A tus piernas." Fantine alone declined to swing. "I do not like people to be so affected," Favourite muttered rather sharply. On giving up the donkeys there was fresh pleasure; the Seine was crossed in a boat, and from Passy they walked to the Barrière de l'Étoile. They had been afoot since five in the morning; but no matter! "There is no such thing as weariness on Sunday," said Favourite; "on Sundays fatigue does not work." At about three o'clock, the four couples, wild with delight, turned into the Montagnes Busses, a singular building, which at that time occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose winding line could be seen over the trees of the Champs Élysées. From time to time Favourite exclaimed,-- "Where's the surprise? I insist on the surprise." "Have patience," Tholomyès answered. CHAPTER V. AT BOMBARDA'S. The Russian mountain exhausted, they thought about dinner, and the radiant eight, at length somewhat weary, put into the Cabaret Bombarda, an offshoot established in the Champs Élysées by that famous restaurateur Bombarda, whose sign could be seen at that time at the Rue de Rivoli by the side of the Delorme passage.