The path which the gentlemen took was in a frightful state. It had rained all night. The soaked ground was becoming a river of mud between the fallen houses, beside this road, traced out over loose soil, wherein the transport carts sank up to the naves of their wheels. On either side fragments of the walls, shattered with pick-axes, remained standing; lofty eviscerated buildings, displaying their pallid entrails, opened in mid-air their empty staircase frames, their suspended gaping rooms, which appeared like the broken drawers of some great ugly piece of furniture. Nothing could look more lamentable than the wall-papers of these rooms, blue or yellow squares, falling in tatters, and indicating, at the height of a fifth or sixth floor, just under the roofs, the place occupied by some poor little garrets, narrow holes, in which perhaps a man's whole life had been confined. The ribbons of the chimney flues rose side by side on the bare walls, lugubriously black and with abrupt bends. A forgotten weathercock grated at the edge of a roof, whilst some half-detached water-spouts hung down like rags. And the gap still deepened amid these ruins, like a breach opened by cannon; under the grey sky, amid the sinister pallidity of the falling plaster dust, the roadway, barely marked out, covered with refuse, with piles of earth and deep pools of water, stretched away, edged with the black marks of chimney flues, as with a mourning border. [Illustration: THE COMMISSIONERS FOR THE PARIS IMPROVEMENTS INSPECTING THE DEMOLITIONS.] The gentlemen, with their well-blackened boots, their frock-coats, and their tall silk hats, set a singular note in this muddy landscape, of a dirty yellow tint, and across which there only passed some pale workmen, some horses splashed to the chine, and some carts, the woodwork of which disappeared beneath a coat of dust. The jurors followed each other in Indian file, jumping from stone to stone, avoiding the pools of flowing filth, at times sinking in up to their heels, and then shaking their feet, and swearing. Saccard had talked about taking the Rue de Charonne, by which they would have avoided this promenade over broken ground, but they unfortunately had several bits of property to visit on the long line of the Boulevard, and, impelled by curiosity, they had decided to pass right through the works. Besides, the sight greatly interested them. At times they stopped, balancing themselves on some bit of plaster which had fallen into a rut, raising their noses, and calling each other to point out some perforated floor, some chimney-pot which had remained in the air, some joist which had fallen on to a neighbouring roof. This bit of a destroyed city, seen on leaving the Rue du Temple, seemed altogether funny to them. "It is really curious," said Monsieur de Mareuil. "Look there, Saccard, look at that kitchen up there. An old frying-pan has remained hanging over the stove. I can distinguish it perfectly."