bakeries, then at the doors of
the butchers and grocers, then at the markets for butter, eggs, fish and
vegetables, and then on the quay for wine, firewood and charcoal--such
is the steady refrain of the police reports.[4261]--And this lasts
uninterruptedly during the fourteen months of revolutionary government:
long lines of people waiting in turn for bread, meat, oil, soap and
candles, "queues for milk, for butter, for wood, for charcoal, queues
everywhere!"[4262] "There was one queue beginning at the door of
a grocery in the Petit Carreau stretching half way up the rue
Montorgueil."[4263] These queues form at three o'clock in the morning,
one o'clock and at midnight, increasing from hour to hour. Picture to
yourself, reader, the file of wretched men and women sleeping on the
pavement when the weather is fine[4264] and when not fine, standing up
on stiff tottering legs; above all in winter, "the rain pouring on their
backs," and their feet in the snow, for so many weary hours in dark,
foul, dimly lighted streets strewed with garbage; for, for want of oil,
one half of the street lamps are extinguished, and for lack of money,
there is no repaving, no more sweeping, the offal being piled up against
the walls.[4265] The crowd draggles along through it, likewise,
nasty, tattered and torn, people with shoes full of holes, because the
shoemakers do no more work for their customers, and in dirty shirts,
because no more soap can be had to wash with, while, morally as well
as physically, all these forlorn beings elbowing each other render
themselves still fouler.--Promiscuousness, contact, weariness, waiting
and darkness afford free play to the grosser instincts; especially in
summer, natural bestiality and Parisian mischievousness have full play.
"Lewd women"[4266] pursue their calling standing in the row; it is
an interlude for them; "their provoking expressions, their immoderate
laughter," is heard some distance off and they find it a convenient
place: two steps aside, on the flank of the row, are "half open doors
and dark alleys" which invite tete-a-tete; many of these women who have
brought their mattresses "sleep there and commit untold abominations."
What an example for the wives and daughters of steady workmen, for
honest servants who hear and see! Men stop at each row and choose their
dulcinea, while others, less shameless, pounce on the women like bulls
and kiss them one after the other." Are not these the fraternal kis