The whole of this day seemed to be composed of dawn; all nature seemed to be having a holiday, and laughing. The pastures of St. Cloud exhaled perfumes; the breeze from the Seine vaguely stirred the leaves; the branches gesticulated in the wind; the bees were plundering the jessamine; a madcap swarm of butterflies settled down on the ragwort, the clover, and the wild oats; there was in the august park of the King of France a pack of vagabonds, the birds. The four happy couples enjoyed the sun, the fields, the flowers, and the trees. And in this community of Paradise, the girls, singing, talking, dancing, chasing butterflies, picking bind-weed, wetting their stockings in the tall grass, fresh, madcap, not bad, all received kisses from all the men, every now and then, save Fantine, enveloped in her vague resistance, dreamy and shy, and who was in love. "You always look strange," Favourite said to her. Such passings-by of happy couples are a profound appeal to life and nature, and bring caresses and light out of everything. Once upon a time there was a fairy, who made fields and trees expressly for lovers; hence the eternal hedge-school of lovers, which incessantly recommences, and will last so long as there are bushes and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers; the patrician and the knifegrinder, the duke and the limb of the law, people of the court and people of the city, as they were called formerly, are all subjects of this fairy. People laugh and seek each other; there is the brilliancy of an apotheosis in the air, for what a transfiguration is loving! Notary's clerks are gods. And then the little shrieks, pursuits in the grass, waists caught hold of, that chattering which is so melodious, that adoration which breaks out in the way of uttering a word, cherries torn from lips,--all this is glorious! People believe that it will never end; philosophers, poets, artists, regard these ecstasies, and know not what to do, as they are so dazzled by them. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter of the middle classes, regards his cits flying away in the blue sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these amourettes, and d'Urfé mixes up Druids with them.