noon
Without stopping to consider the wisdom of his course -- thinking only of Marguerite , whom he could not hope to see once she was behind those battlemented walls -- Charles turned his horse , and galloped off by the third of the three roads mentioned . It was a shorter cut than either of the other two , but one which few travellers ever took , as every mile had witnessed some deed of violence from the bands of robbers who haunted it . Roberval and his party made their way leisurely along the dusty road they had chosen , while the two young men rode with fevered haste along their less frequented paths . Towards noon the three were rapidly converging towards the same point , at which they would arrive almost simultaneously . Claude , who was mounted on a swift charger , which had more than once carried him to victory in a tournament , was the first to reach this point . Scanning the ground he noted that no cavalcade had as yet passed that way . As he sat his horse and waited , the measured galloping of hoofs coming towards Paris fell upon his ears .