pots and pans from
the little pottery in the wood, loaves baked by the aged woman in whose
house he lived. On that Easter Day he had entered the great church for
the first time, for the purpose of seeing the game.

And from the very first, the women who saw him at his business, or
watering his plants in the cool of the evening, idled for him. The men
who noticed the crowd of women at his stall, and how even fresh young
girls from the country, seeing him for the first time, always loitered
there, suspected--who could tell what kind of powers? hidden under the
white veil of that youthful form; and pausing to ponder the matter,
found themselves also fallen into the snare. The sight of him made old
people feel young again. Even the sage monk Hermes, devoted to study
and experiment, was unable to keep the fruit-seller out of his mind,
and would fain have discovered the secret of his charm, partly for the
friendly purpose of explaining to the lad himself his perhaps more than
natural gifts with a view to their profitable cultivation.

It was a period, as older men took note, of young men and their
influence. They took fire, no one could quite explain how, as if at his
presence, and asserted a wonderful amount of volition, of insolence,
yet as if with the consent of their elders, who would themselves
sometimes lose their balance, a little comically. That revolution in
the temper and manner of individuals concurred with the movement then
on foot at Auxerre, as in other French towns, for the liberation of the
commune from its old feudal superiors. Denys they called Frank, among
many other nicknames. Young lords prided themselves on saying that
labour should have its ease, and were almost prepared to take freedom,
plebeian freedom (of course duly decorated, at least with wild-flowers)
for a bride. For in truth Denys at his stall was turning the grave,
slow movement of politic heads into a wild social license, which for a
while made life like a stage-play. He first led those long processions,
through which by and by "the little people," the discontented, the
despairing, would utter their minds. One man engaged with another in
talk in the market-place; a new influence came forth at the contact;
another and then another adhered; at last a new spirit was abroad
everywhere. The hot nights were noisy with swarming troops of
dishevelled women and youths with red-stained limbs and faces, carrying
their lighted torches over the vine-clad