And then one morning in August, amidst the busy awakening of the markets, Claude Lantier, sauntering about in the thick of the arriving vegetables, with his waist tightly girded by his red sash, came to grasp Madame Francois’s hand close by Saint Eustache.  She was sitting on her carrots and turnips, and her long face looked very sad.  The artist, too, was gloomy, notwithstanding the bright sun which was already softening the deep-green velvet of the mountains of cabbages.

“Well, it’s all over now,” he said.  “They are sending him back again.  He’s already on his way to Brest, I believe.”

Madame Francois made a gesture of mute grief.  Then she gently waved her hand around, and murmured in a low voice; “Ah, it is all Paris’s doing, this villainous Paris!”

“No, no, not quite that; but I know whose doing it is, the contemptible creatures!” exclaimed Claude, clenching his fists.  “Do you know, Madame Francois, there was nothing too ridiculous for those fellows in the court to say!  Why, they even went ferreting in a child’s copy-books!  That great idiot of a Public Prosecutor made a tremendous fuss over them, and ranted about the respect due to children, and the wickedness of demagogical education!  It makes me quite sick to think of it all!”

A shudder of disgust shook him, and then, burying himself more deeply in his discoloured cloak, he resumed:  “To think of it!  A man who was as gentle as a girl!  Why, I saw him turn quite faint at seeing a pigeon killed!  I couldn’t help smiling with pity when I saw him between two gendarmes.  Ah, well, we shall never see him again!  He won’t come back this time.”

“He ought to have listened to me,” said Madame Francois, after a pause, “and have come to live at Nanterre with my fowls and rabbits.  I was very fond of him, you see, for I could tell that he was a good-hearted fellow.  Ah, we might have been so happy together!  It’s a sad pity.  Well, we must bear it as best we can, Monsieur Claude.  Come and see me one of these days.  I’ll have an omelet ready for you.”

Her eyes were dim with tears; but all at once she sprang up like a brave woman who bears her sorrows with fortitude.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “here’s old Mother Chantemesse coming to buy some turnips of me.  The fat old lady’s as sprightly as ever!”

Claude went off, and strolled about the footways.  The dawn had risen in the white sheaf of light at the end of the Rue Rambuteau; and the sun, now level with the house-tops, was diffusing rosy rays which already fell in warm patches on the pavements.  Claude was conscious of a gay awakening in the huge resonant markets—­indeed, all over the neighbourhood—­crowded with piles of food.  It was like the joy that comes after cure, the mirth of folks who are at last relieved of a heavy weight which has been pulling them down.  He saw La Sarriette displaying a gold chain and singing amidst her plums and strawberries,