Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/26

2 long matted locks mingled so habitually with the hairs of their goatskin cloaks, and so completely hid the faces that they bent upon the earth, that the goat's skin might have been readily taken for a natural growth, and at first sight the miserable wearers could hardly be distinguished from the animals whose hide now served them for a garment. But very shortly a pair of bright eyes peering through the hair, like drops of dew shining in thick grass, spoke of a human intelligence within, though the expression of the eyes certainly inspired more fear than pleasure. Their heads were covered with dirty red woolen bonnets, very like the Phrygian caps that the Republic in those days had adopted as a symbol of liberty. Each carried a long wallet made of sacking over his shoulder at the end of a thick knotty oak cudgel. There was not much in the wallets.

Others wore above their caps a great broad-brimmed felt hat, with a band of woolen chenille of various colors about the crown, and these were clad altogether in the same coarse linen cloth that furnished the wallets and breeches of the first group; there was scarcely a trace of the new civilization in their dress. Their long hair straggled over the collar of a round jacket which reached barely to the hips, a garment peculiar to the Western peasantry, with little square side pockets in it. Beneath this open-fronted jacket was a waistcoat, fastened with big buttons and made of the same cloth. Some wore sabots on the march, others thriftily carried them in their hands. Soiled with long wear, blackened with dust and sweat, this costume had one distinct merit of its own; for if it was less original than the one first described, it represented a period of historical transition, that ended in the almost magnificent apparel of a few men who shone out like flowers in the midst of the company.

Their red or yellow waistcoats, decorated with two parallel rows of copper buttons, like a sort of oblong cuirass, and their blue linen breeches, stood out in vivid contrast to the white clothing and skin cloaks of their comrades; they looked like poppies and cornflowers in a field of wheat.