The cobbler of Nîmes

By M. IMLAY TAYLOR
THE Cobbler of Nîmes
BY M. IMLAY TAYLOR
CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1900
Copyright By A. C. McClurg & Co. A.D. 1900 All rights reserved
The Cobbler of Nîmes
It was the month of June, 1703, and about noontide on the last day of the week. The fair in the market-place at Nîmes was therefore at its height. A juggler was swallowing a sword in the midst of an admiring circle. Mademoiselle Héloïse, the danseuse , was walking the tight-rope near at hand, and the pick-pockets were plying their trade profitably on the outskirts of the throng. There was a dancing bear, and beyond him—a rival attraction—a monkey in scarlet breeches, with a blouse or camisole over them. The little creature’s antics were hailed with shouts of derisive laughter and cries of “Camisard!� “Barbet!� “Huguenot!� the monkey’s little blouse being an unmistakable caricature of the dress of the Camisards. It therefore behooved the wise to laugh, and they did, and that loudly,—though many a heart was in secret sympathy with the Huguenot rebels of the Cévennes; but were they not in Nîmes? And the Intendant Bâville was there, and the dragoons of King Louis XIV.; so it was that the monkey gathered many a half-crown, and sous and deniers in profusion, in his little cap, and carried them—chattering—to the showman. It was a motley throng: broad, red-faced market-women, old crones with bearded lip and toothless gums, little gamins of the market with prematurely aged faces, countrymen who glanced askance at the monkey while they laughed, pretty peasant girls who had sold their eggs and their poultry, and come to spend their newly acquired riches in ribbons and trinkets, and to have their fortunes told by the old gypsy in the yellow pavilion. Some strolling musicians were playing a popular air, two drunken men were fighting, and a busy tradesman was selling his wares near the entrance of a tent that was manifestly the centre of attraction. It was of white canvas and decorated with numerous images of the devil,—a black figure with horns, hoofs, and tail, engaged in casting another person into the flames; the whole being more startling than artistic. At the door of this tent was a man mounted on a barrel, and dressed fantastically in black, with a repetition of the devils and flames, in red and yellow, around the edge of his long gown, which flapped about a pair of thin legs, set squarely in the centre of two long, schooner-shaped feet. This person, whose face was gross and dull rather than malicious, kept calling his invitation and bowing low as each new visitor dropped a half-crown into the box fastened on the front of the barrel beneath his feet.