Had not one known the painful and angry feelings which were then excited, it would have been a pleasant and a cheerful scene. The sun had by this time got sufficiently round to the westward to throw long shadows from the irregular gable-ended houses more than half way across the wide open road that conducted from the valley to the top of the hill. The perspective, too, was strongly marked by the lines of the buildings; the other side of the road was in bright light; there was a beautiful prospect of hill and dale seen out beyond the town; numerous booths and stalls, kept by peasant women with bright dresses and snowy caps, chequered the whole extent; and up the centre of the street, approaching slowly, were the officers of the district, with a small party of military, followed on either side by a much more considerable number of the lower order of town's people and peasantry. Such was the scene upon which the eyes of the Count de Morseiul fell; and it must be admitted, that when he saw the military his heart beat with considerable feelings of indignation, for we must remember that in towns like that which was under his rule the feudal customs still existed to a very great extent. It was still called his town of Morseiul. The king, indeed, ruled; the laws of the land were administered in the king's name; but the custody, defence, and government of the town of Morseiul was absolutely in the hands of the Count, or of the persons to whom he delegated his power during his absence. It was regularly, in fact, garrisoned in his name; and there were many instances, scarcely twenty years before, in which the garrisons of such towns had resisted in arms the royal authority; and if not held to be fully justified, at all events had passed without punishment, because they were acting under the orders of him in whose name they were levied. The attempt, therefore, of any body of the king's troops to penetrate into the Count's town of Morseiul, without his having been formally deprived of the command thereof, seemed to him one of the most outrageous violations of his privileges which it was possible to imagine; and his heart consequently beat, as we have said, with feelings of high indignation. He suppressed them, however, with the calm determination of doing what was right; and turned to gaze upon the people who surrounded him, in order to ascertain as far as possible by what feelings they were affected.