he dray and walk, they were seized with
a sort of inexorable unity, and were obliged to wind over the ground
with the chain for a backbone, somewhat after the fashion of millepeds.
In the back and front of each vehicle, two men armed with muskets
stood erect, each holding one end of the chain under his foot. The iron
necklets were square. The seventh vehicle, a huge rack-sided baggage
wagon, without a hood, had four wheels and six horses, and carried a
sonorous pile of iron boilers, cast-iron pots, braziers, and chains,
among which were mingled several men who were pinioned and stretched at
full length, and who seemed to be ill. This wagon, all lattice-work,
was garnished with dilapidated hurdles which appeared to have served for
former punishments. These vehicles kept to the middle of the road. On
each side marched a double hedge of guards of infamous aspect, wearing
three-cornered hats, like the soldiers under the Directory, shabby,
covered with spots and holes, muffled in uniforms of veterans and the
trousers of undertakers' men, half gray, half blue, which were almost
hanging in rags, with red epaulets, yellow shoulder belts, short sabres,
muskets, and cudgels; they were a species of soldier-blackguards.
These myrmidons seemed composed of the abjectness of the beggar and the
authority of the executioner. The one who appeared to be their chief
held a postilion's whip in his hand. All these details, blurred by the
dimness of dawn, became more and more clearly outlined as the light
increased. At the head and in the rear of the convoy rode mounted
gendarmes, serious and with sword in fist.

This procession was so long that when the first vehicle reached the
barrier, the last was barely debauching from the boulevard. A throng,
sprung, it is impossible to say whence, and formed in a twinkling, as
is frequently the case in Paris, pressed forward from both sides of
the road and looked on. In the neighboring lanes the shouts of people
calling to each other and the wooden shoes of market-gardeners hastening
up to gaze were audible.

The men massed upon the drays allowed themselves to be jolted along in
silence. They were livid with the chill of morning. They all wore linen
trousers, and their bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes. The rest
of their costume was a fantasy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were
horribly incongruous; nothing is more funereal than the harlequin in
rags. Battered felt hats, tarpaulin caps, hi