age had scarcely stopped when we were surrounded with beggars,
principally women with children in their arms. The poor babes presented
a most pitiable appearance, meagre, dirty to the utmost degree, ragged
and flea-bitten, so that round the throat there was not the least
portion of "carnation" appearing to be free from the insect plague.
Their hair, too, is seldom cut; and I have seen girls of eight or ten
years of age, bearing a growing crop which had evidently remained
unshorn, and I may add, uncombed, from the time of their birth. It is
impossible not to dread coming into contact with these imps, who, when
old, are among the ugliest conceivable specimens of the human race. The
women, even those who inhabit the towns, live much in the open air:
besides being employed in many slavish offices, they sit at their doors
or windows pursuing their business, or lounge about, watching passengers
to obtain charity. Thus their faces and necks are always of a copper
color, and, at an advanced age, more dusky still; so that, for the
anatomy and coloring of witches, a painter needs look no further. Their
wretchedness is strongly contrasted by the gaiety of the higher classes.
The military, who, I suppose, as usual in France, hold the first place,
appear in all possible variety of keeping and costume, with their
well-proportioned figures, clean apparel, decided gait, martial air, and
whiskered faces. Here and there we see gliding along the well-dressed
lady (not well dressed, indeed, as far as becomingness goes, but
fashionably), with a gown of triple flounces, whose skirt intrudes even
upon the shoulders, obliterating the waist entirely, while her throat is
lost in an immense frill of four or more ranks; and sometimes a large
shawl over all completes the disguise of the shape. The head of the dame
or damsel is usually enveloped in a gauze or silk bonnet, sufficiently
large to spread, were it laid upon a table, two feet in diameter, and
trimmed with various-colored ribbons and artificial flowers: in the hand
is seen the ridicule, a never-failing accompaniment. The lower orders of
women at Rouen usually wear the Cauchoise cap, or an approach to it,
rising high to a narrowish point at top, and furnished with immense ears
or wings that drop on the shoulder, then opening in front so as to allow
to be seen on the forehead a small portion of hair, which divides and
falls in two or three spiral ringlets on each side of the face. The
remainde