The flower and market girls of Paris

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CHAPTER PAGE

I. DESPAIR AMD HUNGER 21

II. THE MISER’S TREASURE 59

Chapter I. Despair And Hunger

T HROUGH the profound silence and loneliness of the deserted avenue, the wagons of the market gardeners rolled slowly toward Paris; the measured rhythm of their wheels, re-echoed from the facades of the sleeping houses on either side, behind the confused outlines of their sheltering trees. A cart loaded with cabbages, and another with peas, at the Pont de Neuilly joined eight more, piled with carrots and turnips coming down from Nanterre; the horses moved on slowly by themselves, with heads well down. The drivers slept under the striped covering, holding the reins lightly in their hands. A gas-jet would flash down occasionally on the shining nails of a stout shoe, or the blue sleeve of a blouse, light up the red carrots and white turnips, and bring out the vivid green of the peas and the cabbages.

From all the roads came the dull, continuous sound of wheels, lulling the black town to a deeper sleep as they bore onward through the silence and darkness, this vast supply of food.

Balthasar — the horse belonging to Madame Frangois- — a stout, heavy animal — was at the head of the line. He walked on at a steady pace, though half asleep, gently moving his ears, when all at once, at the head of la Rue de Longchamps, he started, and stood still, firmly planted on his four feet. The other animals did the same, and the whole line came to a halt, amid the oaths of the awakened wagoners.

Madame Francis, leaning against a board among her vegetables, looked out, but saw nothing, for the scanty light of the small lantern fell only on Balthasar’s shining flanks.

“ Well, Mother ! Why don’t you get on ? ” called out one of the men, getting upon his knees among the turnips. “ It is only some drunken man.”

She leaned out of her wagon, and saw on the right, almost under the feet of the horse, a black mass lying across the road.

“ I don’t propose to drive over any one,” she said ? as she clambered over the wheel.

It was a man lying face downwards in the dust. He seemed to be of a most extraordinary length — as thin as a withered branch. It was a miracle that Balthasar had not broken him in two with one blow of his foot. Madame Francis thought the man dead. She knelt down by his side, took his hand, and felt that it was warm.

“ Poor fellow ! ” she said, gently.

But the wagoners were growing impatient, and the one who had previously spoken now said, in his thick voice :

“Give him a push, Mother. He is pretty full, that’s all the trouble ! Boll him over into the gutter ! ”

The man opened his eyes. He looked at Madame Frangois in a wild sort of way, but did not move. She, too, thought him drunk.

“ You must not lie there,” she said. “ You will be run over. Where are you going?”

“ I do not know,” he replied, in a low voice. Then he made an effort, and added :

“ I was going into the city. I fell, and I do not know — ”

She saw him more distinctly now. He was indeed most deplorable in appearance, with his black and threadbare coat and pantaloons clinging closely to his emaciated form. His cap, also of black cloth, pulled down over his brows, showed two bright, brown eyes of singular sweetness in a weary, anxious face. Madame Frangois thought him too thin to be a drinking man.

“And where were you going after you get into Paris?” she asked.

He did not instantly reply ; he was evidently annoyed at this interrogatory. He hesitated, and then said, slowly :

“ I was going to the Halles.”

He struggled to his feet with infinite difficulty, and made an effort to continue his way.

The market-woman saw him stagger, and grasp the side of the wagon.

“ You are tired ? ”

“ Yes, very tired,” he replied.

Then she adopted a rough, authoritative tone, and said :

“Get into the wagon at once! You are making us all lose our time. I am going to the Halles, and I will take you with my vegetables ; ” and as he refused, she lifted him with her stout, strong arms, and threw him among her turnips and carrots.

“Don’t be a fool, my good man ! Don’t I tell you that I am going to the Halles? Go to sleep, and I will wake you when we get there.”

She climbed to her seat, shook her reins a little, as she gathered them up, and Balthasar calmly resumed his slow march, the other wagons following. The reverberations began anew, and drivers fell asleep once more. The one who had spoken, stretched himself out and muttered :

“ I wonder if we are to pick up all the drunken men. If that is your idea, Mother, you will have enough to do.”

The wagons rolled on, the horses going as they pleased. The ma.n whom Madame Francis had rescued, lay at full length among the vegetables, half covered by the spreading carrot-tops. He clutched the side of the wagon with weak, loose fingers, lest he should be thrown out by a sudden jolt, and looked out at the two interminable lines of gas-lights, which afar off melted into other lights.

“ I am from Nanterre. I am called Madame Fran£ois,” said the market-woman, after a long silence. “ Since my old man died, I go myself every morning to the Halles. It is hard work, but I must grin and bear it, I suppose. And you?”

“My name is Florent, and I come from a great distance,” answered the unknown, with some hesitation. “ I beg your pardon, but I am so very tired that it hurts me to speak.”

He was evidently determined not to talk, and she said no more, but let the lines fall a little on Balthasar’s back, as the animal knew every step of the way. Florent, with his eyes riveted on the lights of Paris, thought of the history he hoped to conceal. He had escaped from Cayenne, where he had been sent after these dark December days. He had wandered for two years in Guyana, eager to return to his native land, but afraid of the Imperial police. Could it be that at last he saw the • dear city for which he had so long pined ? He would hide himself there and live peaceably; the police would have no reason to suspect him ; to them he was as good as dead. He thought of his arrival at Havre with fifteen francs tied up in the corner of his handkerchief.

At Rouen he left the railroad, as he had but thirty sons remaining; and at Vernon bought some bread with his last two sous. After that he could remember nothing.

He thought he must have slept several hours in a ditch. A Gendarme had asked for his papers. He remembered all this in a vague sort of way. His head was dizzy, for he had come from Vernon without a mouthful, clutching at times at the leaves of the hedges, and chewing them in despair; but he walked on in spite of cramps, which nearly cut him in two, drawn on by that image of Paris waiting for him behind the distant horizon.

When he reached Courbevoie, the night was very dark. Paris, like a streak of light falling athwart the blackness, appeared to him severe and retreating. As he crossed the Pont de Neuilly, he leaned over the parapet and saw the Seine rolling below in inky blackness between the dark banks. From that point his progress was upward. The avenue seemed absolutely endless to him. The hundred of leagues he had toiled over became as nothing — it was this last part of the road which drove him to desperation ; never would he reach that summit crowned by those lights. The avenue with its tall trees and lower houses — its gray pavements streaked with shadows — the dark gaps made by the cross streets — the silence and the blackness — the yellow flaming gas-lights at regular distances being the only suggestion of life, weighed him down. Florent could not go on. The avenue lengthened as he walked, and Paris was still farther off. It seemed to him that the very gas-lights were dancing to and fro. Pie tottered and fell — an inert mass — on the sidewalk.

And now he was lying on this soft, fresh verdure. He raised his head a little to see a wider extent of the luminous mist that rose above the distant roofs. He was going on without any exertion of his own, and his only pain now arose from the pangs of hunger, which had again awakened within him, and were gnawing like wild animals. The strong and penetrating odor of the carrots troubled him. He turned over on his face, and pressed his stomach against these piles of food, hoping to still his cravings. And behind were nine more huge wagons, with their mountains of cabbages and peas, their piles of artichokes and lettuce, celery and leeks. He wondered if they would fall upon him and stifle him with their abundance, while he lay dying of hunger.

There was a sudden stop — a great noise of voices. They had readied the barrier and the Custom House people were examining the wagons.

Florent entered Paris among the carrots — sound asleep.

11 Hallo! my good man,” cried Madame Franyois, and as he did not move, she reached over and shook him.

He struggled up — he was no longer hungry — he was dizzy and faint. The woman made him get down, and then said :

“ You will help me unload, won’t you?”

He helped her, but a stout man, with a cane and a felt hat, with a metal badge on his left breast, became angry, and knocked his cane against the pavement.

“ Come, come — make haste ! that will never do. You have four metres, haven’t you?”

He handed a paper to Madame Franyois, w r ho drew from a linen bag the necessary sous, and the man ordered the wagon to move on a little, and then turned his grumbling to the next. The market-woman took Balthasar by the bridle, and pushed him back until the wheels ran up to the sidewalk. She proceeded to mark her four metres ou the pavement with small bundles of straw, then lifted the board at the back, and begged Florent to hand her out the vegetables bunch by bunch. She arranged them methodically and with marvellous deftness, so that the turnip, carrot and beet tops framed her little square with a mass of verdure, and the whole looked in the shadow like a rich carpet. When Florent handed her a huge bundle of parsley, the last thing in the wagon, she asked him yet one other service.

“Would you be so kind as to watch my merchandise while I put up my horse? I have only two steps to go — just round the corner to the Compas d’Or in la Hue Montorgueil.”

He assured her that she might make her mind easy — he had as lief stay there as not, until her return. The fact was that he preferred to stay still — for hunger began to gnaw at his vitals the moment he moved. He sat down and leaned against a pile of cabbages, telling her she might be as long as she pleased.

His head was dizzy, and he did not feel quite certain where he was. As soon as September comes, the early morning is dark, and lanterns were moving about, held in invisible hands. He was at the end of a wide street with which he was perfectly unfamiliar; ten steps away it was all thick darkness, and he could see no farther than the merchandise over which he was keeping guard. Confused gray masses occupied the centre of the street, and he heard the sound of cattle moving and breathing loud. A quiet imperative call — the fall of a piece of wood on an iron chain on the stone pavement, the dull thud of a wagon backed up against the curbstone — filled the air with vague suggestions of a formidable awakening near at hand — an awakening with which all this darkness already shivered.

Florent, turning his head, saw on the other side of the pile of cabbages, a man sound asleep, with his head on a basket of prunes ; nearer still was a lad of twelve curled up between two piles of chiccory. But he fixed his eyes in dull surprise on two gigantic covered sheds on either side the street — whose roofs seemed to expand as he gazed. His mind slightly wandered and he began to dream of an endless palace, light and airy, brilliantly illuminated. He saw the slender pillars and the overhanging roof. He tried to count the succession of halls crowded with people. He turned his head aside, restless and uneasy, and suddenly beheld the illuminated clock-face of Saint-Eustache, and the gray mass of the church. He was excessively astonished at finding himself in this locality.

Madame Francis now appeared. She was disputing with a man who carried a sack on his shoulders, and wished to buy her carrots at one sou a bunch.

“But there is no sense in it, Lacaille! You will sell them again for four or five sous to the Parisians ; you know that as well as I do! You can have them for tw<? sous, if you say so.” And as the man went away she said :

“That is really too much — he won’t find any carrots at a sou — but he is tipsy — there is no use in talking about him. He will be back soon enough, too !”

She was speaking to Florent, and then she took a seat by his side.

“Tell me,” she said, “if you have been a long time away from Paris ? For, if you have, this market is new to you. The Halles have been built not more than five years. All this building on your right is devoted to flowers and fruits. Next comes the fish and the poultry, and beyond, the vegetables, cheese, butter, etc. There are six buildings on this side of the street, and on the other four — tripe and meat and all that sort of thing. It is an enormous place, and hideously cold in winter. They say that there are two more divisions to be built, and a number of houses to be torn down, all the way from the wheat market. You know where that is ? ”

“No,” answered Florent, “I am quite a stranger. But what is the name of this wide street, just before us?”

“ It is a new street — la Rue du Pont Neuf, which runs from the Seine. There is la Rue Montmartre, and there is la Rue Montorgueil.”

She rose as she spoke, seeing a woman leaning over her turnips.

“Good-morning, Mother Chantemesse,” she said, in a friendly way.

Florent looked at la Rue Montorgueil. It was there that he had been arrested by armed police on the night of the 4th of December. He was walking along the street, about two o’clock, feeling a certain contempt for all these soldiers that the Elysee had sent forth, when all at once, these soldiers swept the streets with a discharge of musketry. He himself fell at the corner of la Rue Vivienne ; he knew no more, the crowd trampled upon him, and the noise was deafening. When all was again silent, he tried to rise to his feet again. The body of a young girl lay across him. She wore a rose-colored hat, and her shawl had slipped off, showing a muslin waist all tucks and inserting. Two musket-balls had gone through her throat, and when he lifted the poor thing, his hands were drenched with blood. Then he rushed away, mad with horror, and wandered until night, seeing nothing but this young girl with her pale face, and her great blue eyes wide open, in which he read a great surprise — surprise at Death coming to her so suddenly.

He was very timid, and although thirty, rarely looked into a woman’s face, and yet this one would haunt him all the rest of his life. That evening, without knowing how he got there, he found himself at a wine-shop in la Rue Montorgueil. The men were all talking of erecting some barricades. He went with them, and assisted them in tearing up the paving-stones, and then seated himself, for he was weary with the excitement of the day. He had not even a knife in his belt, and his head was bare; he bade his friends tell him if the soldiers came, as he was ready to do his share of fighting. About eleven o’clock, he fell asleep; but his dreams were haunted by those blue eyes, and the two round holes in that white throat. When he awoke, he was in the grasp of four armed men ; his friends bad taken flight. The police wished to strangle him at once when they saw that he had blood on his hands — it was the blood of the blue-eyed girl.

Florent, absorbed in these recollections, 'watched the illuminated dial in the tower of Saint-Eustache, but he saw neither figures nor hands. It was nearly four o’clock. The Halles was not yet well astir. Madame Chantemesse still bargained with Madame Francois over the price of the turnips, and Florent recalled what he had seen in that very spot — five dead bodies had lain there — five poor fellows who had been taken at a barricade in la Rue Gren6ta. He had not been shot down at the same time and place, merely because the men who took him prisoner had swords instead of guns. He was taken to a station near by, where his description was filed.

“ Hands covered with blood when arrested. Very dangerous.”

He was dragged from station to station; at each the same words were written down. He was hand-cuffed and treated as if he were a madman. At one place some tipsy soldiers wished to shoot him, but fortunately orders came that all prisoners should be carried before the Prefect. The next day he was placed in a casemate of the Fort de BicStre. That day he suffered from hunger for the first time in his life, and eagerly snatched the mouthfuls of food which were thrown into him, as to a wild beast.

When he appeared before the Judge, without any testimony in his favor, or counsel to defend him, he was accused of belonging to a secret society; and when he swore that this was not true, the Judge, with a portentous frown, drew out the ominous bit of paper.

“Hands covered with blood when arrested. Very dangerous.”

This was enough. He was tried and condemned at the end of six weeks. In January a jailor came to him in the middle of the night, and took him down to a court-yard where there were at least four hundred other prisoners.

And in another hour the first detachment of these were sent into exile, wearing hand-cuffs, and marching between two files of soldiers with loaded guns. They crossed the Pont d’Austerlitz, following the line of the Boulevards, and reached the Havre station. It was a gay and festive night of the Carnival — the windows of all the restaurants on the Boulevard were blazing with lights; and near la Rue Vivienne, just where the dead girl had lain, Florent saw some masqued women in a carriage, who were much disgusted at being detained by all these “fo^ats,” “who would never get past.”

From Paris to Havre, the prisoners had not a mouthful of bread nor a drop of water. No rations had been distributed before they started. They were forgotten. They had nothing to eat for thirty-six hours — not until they were on board the frigate “Canada.”

As he looked back, he could not remember that he had had enough to eat once since then. He was nothing but skin and bone, and now he returned to Paris, to find her rolling in abundance. He had come back to her borne upon a cart heaped high with vegetables. That Carnival night on which he had left Paris had apparently lasted until now — for seven long years — and it seemed to him that all the glitter and prodigality of that night, as he remembered it, had blossomed out into this enormous market.

Mother Chantemesse decided to buy twelve bunches of turnips. She held them in her apron, and still stood talking. When she at last departed, Madame Francis went back and took a seat by Florent, saying :

“ That poor old woman is over seventy. I was a child when she bought turnips of my father, and she has not a relative in the world, nor a soul to do a thing for her, except a girl she has picked up somewhere. The old woman gets along somehow though, and even makes her forty sous per day. But, dear me, I wonder how she can stay all the time in these Paris streets; they would kill me.”

And as Florent did not speak, she said :

“You have relations here, I suppose?”

He did not seem to hear her. He was uneasy and suspicious. His head was full of stories of police agents and detectives watching at all the corners of the streets — of women selling the secrets they tore from certain poor devils. He looked at Madame Francois’ kindly face, framed in a black and yellow handkerchief tied under her chin. She was apparently about thirty-five, rather large, and masculine, but handsome, from her abundant health and out-of-doors life, softened by the womanly tenderness which spoke from out her black eyes.

She went on, not in the least offended by the silence of her companion.

“I have a nephew in Paris, but he has turned out badly. I suppose your parents will be surprised to see you. Ah ! it is a nice thing to go home when one is sure of a welcome, is it not?”

She did not take her eyes from him as she spoke. She was compassionating his excessive thinness, but detecting a gentleman under his shabby clothing, she did not dare to offer him the piece of silver which was burning her hand.

At last she said, timidly :

“If in the meantime you should happen to want anything — ”

But he refused with uneasy pride; he said he had all he needed, and that he knew where to go. She seemed quite pleased, and said over and over again, as if to reassure herself:

“Well, then, you have only to wait for daylight!”

A great bell above Florent’s head now began to ring, with a slow and regular sound. Carts were rolling up. The shouts of the drivers and the snapping of their whips, the grinding of the gravel, beneath the wheels and the feet of the animals, momentarily increased. The wagons could now advance only a rod or two at a time, so great was the crowd. All along la Rue du Pont Neuf the carts stood against the sidewalk and were unloading — the horses with their heads close together. Florent took especial interest in an enormous load of cabbages on which shone a gas-light, bringing out the green of the large leaves looking like wrinkled velvet. A little peasant girl of sixteen, wearing a blue jacket and close-fitting cap, stood upright in the cart among the cabbages, and threw them one by one to some person standing in the shadow below.

The girl was sometimes almost hidden among the verdure. Then her pretty, rosy face peeped out again. She laughed, and the cabbages recommenced their flight between the gas-light and Florent. He counted them mechanically and was sorry when the cart was empty.

The vegetables were so arranged on the pavement that the venders could circulate among them. The lights from the glancing lanterns shone on a bundle of artichokes, on the delicate green of lettuce, the deep orange of the carrots and the ivory whiteness of turnips. All these brilliant colors were repeated again and again, until the whole ground was like a delicious mosaic. The crowd was rapidly increasing; customers were moving in every direction. A loud voice called :

“ Nice chiceory ! fresh chiccory ! ”

The proprietors of the vegetable stalls — women with their white caps, and fichus knotted loosely, and with their skirts pinned up carefully — were making their purchases, which porters were carrying to the stalls. And there was much noisy disputing over a sou. Florent was infinitely astonished at the calmness of these hale countrywomen, with their sunburned faces and Madras handkerchiefs, in the presence of those voluble Parisians.

Behind him was the fruit market — rows of low, shallow baskets stood covered with cloth or straw, while an odor of over-ripe plums filled the air. A low, sweet voice compelled him to look around. He saw a charmingly pretty woman, small and dark, bargaining with a man.

“ Well, then, Marcel, will you sell them fur a hundred sous ? ”

The man made no reply, and the young woman waited fully five minutes, when she said :

“A hundred sous for this basket, and four francs for the other, make nine that I owe you ? ”

Another silence.

“What, then, am I to give you?”

“Ten francs — just as I told you! And Jules — what have you done with him, La Sarriette?”

The woman laughed, and said as she showed a handful of money :

“Bless your heart, Jules is asleep ! He vows that men were not made to work.”

She paid him, and took the two baskets into the, fruit market, which had just opened. Through its covered streets a crowd was constantly passing, while at the Pointe Saint-Eustache, the bakers and proprietors of other small shops were just taking down their shutters, and their windows, lighted by gas, made little red spots among the gray houses. Florent looked to the left, way down la Rue Montorgueil, and saw the glossy brown loaves in the window, and fancied that he could even smell them. It was now half-past four.

All this time Madame Franyois was getting rid of her merchandise, and had now nothing left, but some bunches of carrots, when Lacaille appeared again with his sack.

“ Will you take a sou for them now?” he asked.

“ I was sure you would be back,” answered the market-woman, quietly. “You can have all that are left — only seventeen bunches.”

“ That makes seventeen sous.”

“ No ; thirty- four.”

They finally agreed on twenty-five, as Madame Fran§ois was in a hurry to get away, and Lacaille went off quite triumphant with his carrots in his sack.

“ Old miser ! ” she said to Florent. “ He always waits until the last sound of the bell to buy his four sous’ worth of stuff. Ah, these Parisians ! They bargain their eyes out for two liards, and then go and drink up every sou they own, at the first wine-shop.”

When Madame Frangois spoke of Paris, she was full of irony and contempt. She seemed to regard it as a most contemptible, as well as ridiculous city, in which she would not consent to spend a night.

“And now,” she said, with a sigh of relief, as she again seated herself by Florent ; “ now I can go.”

Florent looked away, for he had committed a theft. He had picked up a carrot and held it concealed in his hand. The parsley and celery emitted such fragrance that his hunger became unendurable.

“I am going away,” repeated Madame Fran§ois.

She was interested in this stranger, and was certain that he was suffering. She made him new proffers of assistance, but he refused them all with a certain sharpness in his voice. He rose to his feet to prove that he was quite able to go on his way, and as she turned away her head, he put a piece of the carrot in his mouth. He held it there a moment, as she looked him once more in the face, with several new questions. He nodded, and eat the carrot slowly.

The market-woman turned to depart, when a full voice called out :

u Good-morning, Madame Francis ! ”

It was a thin fellow who spoke — a thin fellow with a big head and big bones, a delicate nose, and small bright eyes. He wore a hat of black felt, shabby and out of shape. He was closely buttoned up in an immense overcoat, once light chestnut in tint, on which the rain had left huge greenish blotches. Round-shouldered, and trembling in a nervous way that was probably habitual, he stood with his legs a little apart, his stout-laced shoes and blue stockings fully exposed to view by his very short pantaloons.

“ Good-morning, Monsieur Claude,” replied the market-woman, gayly. “ I waited for you Monday, and as you did not come, I took care of your canvas, and fastened it up on my wall in my bedroom.”