Pierre and Guillaume followed the Allee de Longchamp as far as the road
going from Madrid to the lakes. Then they took their way under the trees,
alongside the little Longchamp rivulet. They wished to reach the lakes,
pass round them, and return home by way of the Maillot gate. But so
charming and peaceful was the deserted plantation through which they
passed, that they yielded to a desire to sit down and taste the delight
of resting amidst all the budding springtide around them. A fallen tree
served them as a bench, and it was possible for them to fancy themselves
far away from Paris, in the depths of some real forest. It was, too, of a
real forest that Guillaume began to think on thus emerging from his long,
voluntary imprisonment. Ah! for the space; and for the health-bringing
air which courses between that forest's branches, that forest of the
world which by right should be man's inalienable domain! However, the
name of Barthes, the perpetual prisoner, came back to Guillaume's lips,
and he sighed mournfully. The thought that there should be even a single
man whose liberty was thus ever assailed, sufficed to poison the pure
atmosphere he breathed.
"What will you say to Barthes?" he asked his brother. "The poor fellow
must necessarily be warned. Exile is at any rate preferable to
imprisonment.
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