The Laboques brought in their train all the former tradesmen of Beauclair, whilst the Bourrons brought the whole of La Crêcherie. The Lenfants were there, at home, and never yet had folk fraternised so fully, the groups fast mingling and uniting in one sole family. The Laboques, no doubt, remained grave and somewhat embarrassed, but the Lenfants made merry with all their hearts, whilst the great sight of all was Babette Bourron, whose everlasting good humour, her certainty, even amidst the greatest worries, that things would turn out well at last, now proved triumphant. She personified hope, marching radiant behind the two bridal couples; and when these arrived--Marthe Bourron on the arm of Auguste Laboque, Eulalie Laboque on the arm of Arsène Lenfant--they brought with them such a blaze of youth and strength and delight, that endless acclamations rolled from one to the other end of the stubbles. The onlookers called to them affectionately, they were loved, they were praised because they indeed personified sovereign and victorious love, that love which had already drawn all those folk together, by giving them those overflowing harvests amidst which they would henceforth swarm like a free and united people, ignorant alike of hatred and of want. That same day other marriages were decided upon, as had already happened at the wedding of Lucien Bonnaire and Louise Mazelle. Madame Mitaine, the former bakeress, who had remained for everybody the 'beautiful Madame Mitaine,' in spite of her sixty-five years, kissed Olympe Lenfant, sister to one of the bridegrooms, and told her that she would be happy to call her 'daughter,' for her son Évariste had confessed that he adored her. The beautiful bakeress's husband had been dead for ten years, and her establishment had been merged into the general stores of La Crêcherie, as was the case with most of the retail businesses of the town. She lived like a retired worker with her son Évariste, both very proud of the fact that Luc had given them the charge of the electrical kneading appliances, which yielded an abundance of white light bread. Whilst Évariste in his turn was bestowing a betrothal kiss on Olympe, who had turned pink with pleasure, Madame Mitaine suddenly recognised in a thin, dark little woman seated beside a rick, her old neighbour, Madame Dacheux, the butcher's wife. She thereupon went and sat down beside her. 'Must it not all finish in weddings,' she asked gaily, 'since all these young folk were ever playing together?'