CHAPTER XXIV . A CAPITAL
What a noise, what busy people! What ideas for the
future in a brain of twenty! What distraction offered by
love. — Barnave .
Finally he saw some black walls near a distant mountain. It was the citadel of Besançon. "How different it would be for me," he said with a sigh, "if I were arriving at this noble military town to be sub-lieutenant in one of the regiments entrusted with its defence." Besançon is not only one of the prettiest towns in France, it abounds in people of spirit and brains. But Julien was only a little peasant, and had no means of approaching distinguished people.
He had taken a civilian suit at Fouqué's, and it was in this dress that he passed the drawbridge. Steeped as he was in the history of the siege of 1674, he wished to see the ramparts
