CHAP 97 THE DEPARTURE FOR BELGIUM

Eugenie shears her hair and says she will dress as a man and accompany Louise to Belgium with what money they can grab. They will live together as partners and musicians, thus earning money to survive. Eugenie's relationship with Louise has, over the course of the novel, seemed like a particularly intense friendship.

CHAP 98 THE BELL & BOTTLE TAVERN

Analysis Andrea heads away from Paris in a mail coach as fast as he can, and winds up at an inn called the Bell and Bottle. There, he orders a room in the dress of a common bourgeois and makes a plan for the following day: he will move out into the countryside, rent a small shack or room from a peasant, and avoid contact with people as much as is possible. He wakes early in the morning to head out into the countryside. But when he does this, he notices that the inn is swarming with gendarmes. Alarmed, Andrea climbs up onto the roof, then tumbles down and hides in a room of the inn. There, to his surprise, he finds Eugenie and Louise, with Eugenie traveling as a man. Andrea believes, much to the girls' laughter, that they have followed him to the inn because Eugenie is still in love with him. Out of a mixture of condescension and basic fellow-feeling, they tell him to run, but he steps outside and is caught by the gendarmes to be taken back to Paris and tried. This allows Louise and Eugenie to continue their escape to Belgium later that day, as the commotion of the arrest of Andrea has caused enough of a distraction for them to sneak away. It is another of the novel's coincidences that Andrea and Eugenie wind up fleeing to the same inn. But Eugenie and Louise manage to maintain their low profile and to escape to Belgium, whereas Andrea, even though Eugenie tries to help him, will be caught by the authorities. This is an instance in the text where characters appear to receive their just desserts: Andrea, the criminal, will have trouble escaping the law, whereas Eugenie, who has only ever wanted her independence, is able to fight for it and gain it on her own terms.

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