All things have their salad days, even the Treasury; and in 1822 those days still lasted.

Often in summer, the "four-wheel-coach," and the coucou journeyed together, carrying between them thirty-two passengers, though Pierrotin was only paying a tax on six.

On these specially lucky days the convoy started from the faubourg Saint-Denis at half-past four o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived gallantly at Isle-Adam by ten at night.

Proud of this service, which necessitated the hire of an extra horse, Pierrotin was wont to say:-- "We went at a fine pace!" But in order to do the twenty-seven miles in five hours with his caravan, he was forced to omit certain stoppages along the road,--at Saint-Brice, Moisselles, and La Cave.
The hotel du Lion d'Argent occupies a piece of land which is very deep for its width.

Though its frontage has only three or four windows on the faubourg Saint-Denis, the building extends back through a long court-yard, at the end of which are the stables, forming a large house standing close against the division wall of the adjoining property.
The entrance is through a sort of passage-way beneath the floor of the second story, in which two or three coaches had room to stand.