Republic had lately adopted as an emblem of liberty. Each man carried
over his shoulder a heavy stick of knotted oak, at the end of which
hung a linen bag with little in it. Some wore, over the red cap, a
coarse felt hat, with a broad brim adorned by a sort of woollen
chenille of many colors which was fastened round it. Others were
clothed entirely in the coarse linen of which the trousers and wallets
of all were made, and showed nothing that was distinctive of the new
order of civilization. Their long hair fell upon the collar of a round
jacket with square pockets, which reached to the hips only, a garment
peculiar to the peasantry of western France. Beneath this jacket,
which was worn open, a waistcoat of the same linen with large buttons
was visible. Some of the company marched in wooden shoes; others, by
way of economy, carried them in their hand. This costume, soiled by
long usage, blackened with sweat and dust, and less original than that
of the other men, had the historic merit of serving as a transition
between the goatskins and the brilliant, almost sumptuous, dress of a
few individuals dispersed here and there among the groups, where they
shone like flowers. In fact, the blue linen trousers of these last,
and their red or yellow waistcoats, adorned with two parallel rows of
brass buttons and not unlike breast-plates, stood out as vividly
among the white linen and shaggy skins of their companions as the
corn-flowers and poppies in a wheat-field. Some of them wore wooden
shoes, which the peasants of Brittany make for themselves; but the
greater number had heavy hobnailed boots, and coats of coarse cloth cut
in the fashion of the old regime, the shape of which the peasants have
religiously retained even to the present day. The collars of their
shirts were held together by buttons in the shape of hearts or
anchors. The wallets of these men seemed to be better than those of
their companions, and several of them added to their marching outfit a
flask, probably full of brandy, slung round their necks by a bit