wheels. At the Neuilly bridge a cart full of cabbages and another full
of peas had joined the eight waggons of carrots and turnips coming
down from Nanterre; and the horses, left to themselves, had continued
plodding along with lowered heads, at a regular though lazy pace, which
the ascent of the slope now slackened. The sleeping waggoners, wrapped
in woollen cloaks, striped black and grey, and grasping the reins
slackly in their closed hands, were stretched at full length on their
stomachs atop of the piles of vegetables. Every now and then, a gas
lamp, following some patch of gloom, would light up the hobnails of a
boot, the blue sleeve of a blouse, or the peak of a cap peering out
of the huge florescence of vegetables--red bouquets of carrots, white
bouquets of turnips, and the overflowing greenery of peas and cabbages.

And all along the road, and along the neighbouring roads, in front and
behind, the distant rumbling of vehicles told of the presence of similar
contingents of the great caravan which was travelling onward through the
gloom and deep slumber of that matutinal hour, lulling the dark city to
continued repose with its echoes of passing food.

Madame Francois's horse, Balthazar, an animal that was far too fat,
led the van. He was plodding on, half asleep and wagging his ears, when
suddenly, on reaching the Rue de Longchamp, he quivered with fear and
came to a dead stop. The horses behind, thus unexpectedly checked, ran
their heads against the backs of the carts in front of them, and the
procession halted amidst a clattering of bolts and chains and the oaths
of the awakened waggoners. Madame Francois, who sat in front of her
vehicle, with her back to a board which kept her vegetables in position,
looked down; but, in the dim light thrown to the left by a small square
lantern, which illuminated little beyond one of Balthazar's sheeny
flanks, she could distinguish nothing.