In Versailles Madame does her own marketing, her maid--in sabots and
neat but usually hideous cap--accompanying her, basket laden. From stall
to stall Madame passes, buying a roll of creamy butter wrapped in fresh
leaves here, a fowl there, some eggs from the wrinkled old dame who
looks so swart and witch-like in contrast to her stock of milk-white
eggs.

Madame makes her purchases judiciously--time is not a valuable commodity
in Versailles--and finishes, when the huge black basket is getting heavy
even for the strong arms of the squat little maid, by buying a mess of
cooked spinach from the pretty girl whose red hood makes a happy spot of
colour among the surrounding greenery, and a measure of onions from the
profound-looking sage who garners a winter livelihood from the summer
produce of his fields.

[Illustration: A Foraging Party]

Relations with uncooked food are, in Versailles, distinguished by an
unwonted intimacy. No one, however dignified his station or appearance,
is ashamed of purchasing the materials for his dinner in the open
market, or of carrying them home exposed to the view of the world
through the transpicuous meshes of a string bag. The portly gentleman
with the fur coat and waxed moustaches, who looks a general at least,
and is probably a tram-car conductor, bears his bunch of turnips with an
air that dignifies the office, just as the young sub-lieutenant in the
light blue cloak and red cap and trousers carries his mother's apples
and lettuces without a thought of shame. And it is easy to guess the
nature of the _déjeûner_ of this _simple soldat_ from the long loaf, the
bottle of _vin ordinaire_, and the onions that form the contents of his