of twine. A few burgesses were to be seen in the midst of these
semi-savages, as if to show the extremes of civilization in this
region. Wearing round hats, or flapping brims or caps, high-topped
boots, or shoes and gaiters, they exhibited as many and as remarkable
differences in their costume as the peasants themselves. About a dozen
of them wore the republican jacket known by the name of "la
carmagnole." Others, well-to-do mechanics, no doubt, were clothed from
head to foot in one color. Those who had most pretension to their
dress wore swallow-tail coats or surtouts of blue or green cloth, more
or less defaced. These last, evidently characters, marched in boots of
various kinds, swinging heavy canes with the air and manner of those
who take heart under misfortune. A few heads carefully powdered, and
some queues tolerably well braided showed the sort of care which a
beginning of education or prosperity inspires. A casual spectator
observing these men, all surprised to find themselves in one another's
company, would have thought them the inhabitants of a village driven
out by a conflagration. But the period and the region in which they
were gave an altogether different interest to this body of men. Any
one initiated into the secrets of the civil discords which were then
agitating the whole of France could easily have distinguished the few
individuals on whose fidelity the Republic might count among these
groups, almost entirely made up of men who four years earlier were at
war with her.

One other and rather noticeable sign left no doubt upon the opinions
which divided the detachment. The Republicans alone marched with an
air of gaiety. As to the other individuals of the troop, if their
clothes showed marked differences, their faces at least and their
attitudes wore a uniform expression of ill-fortune. Citizens and
peasantry, their faces all bore the imprint of deepest melancholy;