Chapter 1 - Page 2

warehouses; lovers of the Middle
Ages will here find the _ouvrouere_ of our forefathers in all its
naive simplicity. These low rooms, which have no shop-frontage, no
show-windows, in fact no glass at all, are deep and dark and without
interior or exterior decoration. Their doors open in two parts, each
roughly iron-bound; the upper half is fastened back within the room,
the lower half, fitted with a spring-bell, swings continually to and
fro. Air and light reach the damp den within, either through the upper
half of the door, or through an open space between the ceiling and a
low front wall, breast-high, which is closed by solid shutters that
are taken down every morning, put up every evening, and held in place
by heavy iron bars.

This wall serves as a counter for the merchandise. No delusive display
is there; only samples of the business, whatever it may chance to be,
--such, for instance, as three or four tubs full of codfish and salt,
a few bundles of sail-cloth, cordage, copper wire hanging from the
joists above, iron hoops for casks ranged along the wall, or a few
pieces of cloth upon the shelves. Enter. A neat girl, glowing with
youth, wearing a white kerchief, her arms red and bare, drops her
knitting and calls her father or her mother, one of whom comes forward
and sells you what you want, phlegmatically, civilly, or arrogantly,
according to his or her individual character, whether it be a matter
of two sous' or twenty thousand francs' worth of merchandise. You may
see a cooper, for instance, sitting in his doorway and twirling his
thumbs as he talks with a neighbor. To all appearance he owns nothing
more than a few miserable boat-ribs and two or three bundles of laths;
but below in the port his teeming wood-yard supplies all the cooperage
trade of Anjou. He knows to a plank how many casks are needed if the
vintage is good. A hot season makes him rich, a rainy season ruins
him; in a single morning puncheons worth eleven francs have been known
to drop to six. In this country, as in Touraine, atmospheric
vicissitudes control commercial life. Wine-growers, proprietors,
wood-merchants, coopers, inn-keepers, mariners, all keep watch of the
sun. They tremble when they go to bed lest they should hear in the
morning of a frost in the night; they dread rain, wind, drought, and
want water, heat, and clouds to suit their fancy. A perpetual duel goes
on between the heavens and their terrestrial interests. The barometer
smooths, saddens, or makes merry their countenances, turn and turn
about. From end to end of this street, formerly the Grand'Rue de
Saumur, the words: "Here's golden weather," are passed from door to
door; or each man calls to his neighbor: "It rains louis," knowing
well