find in our own heraldic albums. She is noble by nature, and has the
advantage over her coroneted cousins in being permitted to wear a white
cap out of doors, and an easy and simple costume; in the fact of her
limbs being braced by a life spent in the open air, and her head not
being plagued with the proprieties of May Fair. She is pretty; but what
is of more importance she knows how to cook, and she has a little store
of money in a bank. She has been taught enough for her station, and has
few wishes beyond it; and some day she will marry Jean, and happy will
be Jean.

That stalwart warrior (whom we see on the next page), sunning himself
outside his barrack door, having just clapped his helmet on the head of
a little boy in blouse and sabots, is surely a near relation to our
guardsman; he is certainly brave, he is full of fun and intelligence, he
very seldom takes more wine than is good for him, and a game at
dominoes delights his soul.

[Illustration]

But it is in the market-place of Pont Audemer that we shall obtain the
best idea of the place and of the people.

On market mornings and on fête days, when the _Place_ is crowded with
old and young,--when all the caps (of every variety of shape, from the
'helmet' to the _bonnet-rouge_), and all the old brown coats with short
tails--are collected together, we have a picture, the like of which we
may have seen in rare paintings, but very seldom realize in life. Of the
tumult of voices on these busy mornings, of the harsh discordant sounds
that sometimes fill the air, we must not say much, remembering their
continual likeness to our own; but viewed, picturesquely, it is a sight