About noon
In spite of the miserable beasts which dragged their wretched wagons filled with straw , and the peasants who served as postilions -- in spite of all this , I was moved with compassion as I recalled the joy I felt five months before on seeing France again , and I said to myself : `` Poor people ! they will weep on beholding Paris again , they are going to be happy ! '' They all stopped at the `` Red Ox , '' the hotel of the old ambassadors and marshals and princes and dukes and rich people , who no longer patronized it , and we could see them in the rooms brushing their own hair , dressing and shaving themselves . About noon they all came down , shouting and calling `` John ! '' `` Claude ! '' `` Germain ! '' with great impatience , and ordering them about like important personages , and seating themselves around the great tables , with their old servants all patched up and standing behind them with their napkins under their arms .