Along the quays there was a stir of life as great as that to be seen
on the quays of Paris. Foreign sailors in outlandish garments and
of harsh-sounding, outlandish speech, stalwart fishwives with baskets
of herrings on their heads, voluminous of petticoat above bare legs
and bare feet, calling their wares shrilly and almost inarticulately,
watermen in woollen caps and loose trousers rolled to the knees,
peasants in goatskin coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the
round kidney-stones, shipwrights and labourers from the dockyards,
bellows-menders, rat-catchers, water-carriers, ink-sellers, and other
itinerant pedlars. And, sprinkled through this proletariat mass that
came and went in constant movement, Andre-Louis beheld tradesmen in
sober garments, merchants in long, fur-lined coats; occasionally a
merchant-prince rolling along in his two-horse cabriolet to the
whip-crackings and shouts of "Gare!" from his coachman; occasionally
a dainty lady carried past in her sedan-chair, with perhaps a mincing
abbe from the episcopal court tripping along in attendance;
occasionally an officer in scarlet riding disdainfully; and once the
great carriage of a nobleman, with escutcheoned panels and a pair
of white-stockinged, powdered footmen in gorgeous liveries hanging
on behind.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132