France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction
hooks offered for sale at the old-clothes shops. At the Porcherons
and at Ramponneau's men decked out in surplices and stoles bestrode
donkeys caparisoned with chasubles, and drank wine from ecclesiastical
ciboria. In the Rue Saint-Jacques barefooted street-pavers once stopped
the wheelbarrow of a shoe-pedler and clubbing together bought fifteen
pairs of shoes to send to the Convention "for our soldiers." Busts of
Rousseau, Franklin, Brutus, and even, be it added, of Marat, abounded.
In the Rue Cloche-Perce, below one of Marat's busts, in a black wooden
frame under glass, hung a formula of prosecution against Malouet, with
facts in support of the charges and the following lines inscribed on
the margin:--
These details were given to me by the mistress of Sylvain
Bailly, a good patriot, and who had a liking for me.
Signed: MARAT.
The inscription on the Palais Royal fountain, "Quantos effundit in
usus!" was hidden under two large canvases painted in distemper, one
representing Cahier de Gerville denouncing to the National Assembly
the rallying-cry of the "Chiffonistes" of Arles; the other, Louis
XVI. brought back from Varennes in his royal carriage, and under the
carriage a plank fastened by cords bearing on each end a grenadier
with levelled bayonet. Very few large shops were open; perambulating
carts containing haberdashery and toys, lighted by tallow candles,
which, melting, dripped upon the merchandise, were dragged through the
streets by women. Ex-nuns adorned with blond wigs kept open shop; this
woman, darning stockings in a stall, was a countess; that dressmaker,
a marchioness; Madame de Boufflers lived in an attic from which she
had a view of her own hotel. Venders ran about offering the news
bulletins. People who muffled their chins in their neck-cloths were
called "écrouelleux." Street singers swarmed. The crowd hooted Pitou,
the royalist song-writer, a brave man, to boot, for he was imprisoned
twenty-two times and was brought before the revolutionary tribunal for
slapping himself behind when he uttered the word "civism;" seeing that
his head was in danger, he exclaimed, "But my head is not the offending
member!" which made the judges laugh, and saved his life. This Pitou
ridiculed the fashion of Greek and Latin names; his favorite song
was about a cobbler and his wife whom he called Cujus and Cujusdam.
The Carmagnole was danced in circles; they no longer said "lady"
and "gentleman," but "citizen" and "citizeness." They danced in the
ruined cloisters, beneath a chandelier made of two sticks fastened
crosswise to the vaulted roof, bearing four candles, while the church
lamps burned upon the altar, and tombs lay beneath the dancers' feet.
They wore "tyrant-blue" waistcoats, and shirt-pins called "liberty's
cap," composed of red, white, and blue stones. The Rue de Richelieu
was called Rue de la Loi; the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the Faubourg de
Gloire; a statue of Nature stood in the Place de la Bastille. People
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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