Here, as elsewhere, huge braziers are lit at intervals, so that materfamilias may cook the few herrings she has brought with her if she be so minded, and all down the narrow street tables are set, innocent of cloths or even of that cleanliness which is next to the equally neglected virtue of godliness. But the tables have an air of cheeriness nevertheless, with resin torches, tallow candles, or old stable lanterns set here and there, the flames flickering in the gentle breeze, adding picturesqueness to the scene which might otherwise have seemed sordid, with those pewter mugs and tin plates, the horn-handled knives and iron spoons. The scanty light does little more than accentuate the darkness around, the deep shadows under projecting balconies or lintels of portes-cochères carefully closed and barred for the night; but it glints with weird will-o'-the-wisp-like fitfulness on crimson caps and tricolour cockades, on drawn and begrimed faces, bony arms, or lean, brown hands. A motley throng, in truth! The workers of Paris, its proletariat, all conscripted servants of the State--slaves, we might call them, though they deem themselves free men--all driven into hard manual labour, partly by starvation and wholly by the decree of the Committees, who decide how and when and in what form the nation requires the arms or hands--not the brains, mind you!--of its citizens. For brains the nation has no use, only in the heads of those who sit in Convention or on Committees. "The State hath no use for science," was grimly said to Lavoisier, the great chemist, when he begged for a few days' surcease from death in order to complete some important experiments.