It was about eight when I
set out. The conscription was to begin at nine, but already the one
straggling, narrow street which bisects the old bathing-town was
filled with country-people hastening in groups or singly toward the
market-place, where the town-hall was situated. The scene presented
here was of a most animated kind. The market had some time since
begun, and in and out amongst the stalls of the sellers moved a crowd
of people of all trades, of all ranks and of all appearances.
Fishermen, tradesmen, peasants, soldiers--knots of all these were
there, some from curiosity or to accompany a friend or relation to the
urn; some laughing, some shouting, some drinking, some dancing in a
boisterous round to the music of a barrel-organ; some bawling a
popular song in a gay, ever-repeated chorus; some raffling for nuts
and biscuits at smartly-decked fair-booths, or playing at Chinese
billiards for painted mugs or huge cakes of gilt gingerbread; some
listening to the stump orations of an extempore fortuneteller, who
promised the baton of the field-marshal to any conscript who would
give him a penny; and some buying by yards the patriotic,
soul-stirring songs of Beranger, and reciting them in every tone, in
every key and to every tune.
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