"I think, sir, he should be put at his ease: depend upon it, this would suit him better than being returned knight of the shire for any county in England."
"Good Heaven, sir!"... resumed the enthusiast; but he looked up and his opponent was gone.
LETTER LXVIII.
Walk to the Marché des Innocens.—Escape of a Canary Bird.—A Street Orator.—Burying-place of the Victims of July.
I must give you to-day an account of the adventures I have encountered in a course à pied to the Marché des Innocens. You must know that there is at one of the corners of this said Marché a shop sacred to the ladies, which débits all those unclassable articles that come under the comprehensive term of haberdashery,—a term, by the way, which was once interpreted to me by a celebrated etymologist of my acquaintance to signify "avoir d'acheter." My magasin "à la Mère de Famille" in the Marché des Innocens fully deserves this description, for there are few female wants in which it fails to "avoir d'acheter." It was to this compendium of utilities that I was notably proceeding when I saw before me, exactly on a spot that I was obliged to pass, a throng of people that at the first glance I really thought was a prodigious mob; but at the second, I confess that they shrank and dwindled considerably. Nevertheless, it looked ominous; and as I was alone, I felt a much stronger inclination to turn back than to proceed. I paused to decide which I should do; and observing, as I did so, a very respectable-looking woman at the door of a shop very near the tumult, I ventured to address an inquiry to her respecting the cause of this unwonted assembling of the people in so peaceable a part of the town; but, unfortunately, I used a phrase in the inquiry which brought upon me more evident quizzing than one often gets from the civil Parisians. My words, I think, were,—"Pourriez-vous me dire, madame, ce que signifie tout ce monde?... Est-ce qu'il y a quelque mouvement?"
This unfortunate word mouvement amused her infinitely; for it is in fact the phrase used in speaking of all the real political hubbubs that have taken place, and was certainly on this occasion as ridiculous as if some one, on seeing forty or fifty people collected together around a pick-pocket or a broken-down carriage in London, were to gravely inquire of his neighbour if the crowd he saw indicated a revolution.
"Mouvement!" she repeated with a very speaking smile: "est-ce que madame est effrayée?... Mouvement ... oui, madame, il y a beaucoup de mouvement; mais cependant c'est sans mouvement.... C'est tout bonnement le petit serin de la marchande de modes là bas qui vient de s'envoler. Je puis vous assurer la chose," she added, laughing, "car je l'ai vu partir."
"Is that all?" said I. "Is it possible that the escape of a bird can have brought all these people together?"
"Oui, madame, rien autre chose.... Mais regardez—voilà les agens de police qui s'approchent pour voir ce que c'est—ils en saisissent un, je crois.... Ah! ils ont une manière si étonnante de reconnaître leur monde!"