The Chouans Or Bretagne In 1799

Author : Honore de Balzac
Publisher : Butler Press
ISBN 13 : 1443774375
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (437 download)

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Download or read book The Chouans - Brittany in 1799 written by Honore de Balzac and published by Butler Press. This book was released on 2008-10-27 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: EARLY in the year VIII., at the beginning of Vend miaire, or, to conform to our own calendar, towards the close of September, 1799, a hundred or so of peasants and a large number of citizens, who had left Fougeres in the morning on their way to Rlayenne, mere going up the little mountain of La PBlerine, half-way between Fougeres and Ernbe, a small town where travellers along that road are in the habit of resting. This com- pany, divided into groups that were more or less nu- merous, presented a collection of such fantastic costumes and a mixture of individuals belonging to so many and diverse localities and professions that it will be well to describe their characteristic differences, in order to give to this history the vivid local coloring to which so much valde is attached in these days, - though some critics do assert that it injures the representation of sentiments. Many of the peasants, in fact the greater number, were barefooted, and wore no other garments than a l 2 Zhe Chouans. large goatskin, which BQtefqdthem from the neck to the c, kneds, nktru.upkrs of wiiite arid vev coarse linen, the ill- woven fetuii oC which- betrayed the slovenly industrial habits of the region. The straight locks of their long hair mingling with those of the goatskill liid their faces, which were bent on the ground, so completely that the garment might have been thought their own skin, and they tllemselves mistaken at first sight for a species of the animal which served them as clothing. Gut through this tangle of hair their eyes were presently seen to shine like dew-drops in a thicket, aid their glances, full of human intelligence, caused fear rather than pleasure to those who Inet them. Their heads were covered with a dirty head-gear of red flannel, not unlike the Phrygian cap which the Republic had lately adopted as an emblem of liberty. Each man carried over his sliolder a heavj stick of knotted oak, at the end of which hung a linen bag with little in it. Some wore, over the red cap, a coarse felt hat, with a broad brim adorned by a sort of woollen cbenille of many colors which was fastened round it. Others were clothed entirely in the coarse linen of which the trousers and wallets of all were made, and shoed nothing that was distinctive of the new order of civilization. Their long hair fell upon the collar of a round jacket with square pockets, which reached to the hips only, a garment peculiar to the pensantrr of western France. Beneath this jacket, which was vorn open, a waistcoat of the same linen with large buttons was visible. Some of the company marched in wooden shoes others, by way of economy, carried them in their hand. This costome, soiled b long tlsage, blackened with swelt nncl tlnst, and less original than that of the other me, had the historic merit of seming as a transition between the goatskins and the brilliant, almost sumptuons, dress of a few inclivicluals dispersed here and tlicre among the groups, where they shone like flowers. In fact, the blue linen trousers of these last, and their recl or yellow waistcoats, adorned with two parallel rows of brass buttons and not unlike breast- plates, stood out as vividly among the white linen and shaggy skins of their companions as the corn-flowers and poppies in a wheat-field. Some of them wore wooden shoes, which the peasants of Brittany make for them- selves bnt the greater number had heavy hob-nailed boots, and coats of coarse cloth cut in the fashion of the old regime, the shape of which the peasants have re- ligiously retained even to the present day. The collars of their shirts mere held together by buttons in the shape of hearts or anchors...