A Versailles Christmas-Tide | Page 9

family raiment with a view to
durability. Flimsy finery that the sun would fade, shoddy materials that
a shower of rain would ruin, offer no temptations to her. When she
expends a few sous on the cutting of her boy's hair, she has it cropped
until his cranium resembles the soft, furry skin of a mole, thus
rendering further outlay in this respect unlikely for months. And when
she buys a flannel shirt, a six-inch strip of the stuff, for future mending,
is always included in the price.
But with all this economy there is an air of comfort, a complete absence
of squalor. In cold weather the school-girls wear snug hoods, or little
fur turbans; and boys have the picturesque and almost indestructible
bérets of cloth or corduroy. Cloth boots that will conveniently slip
inside sabots for outdoor use are greatly in vogue, and the comfortable
Capuchin cloaks--whose peaked hood can be drawn over the head, thus
obviating the use of umbrellas--are favoured by both sexes and all ages.
[Illustration: Mistress and Maid]
As may be imagined, little is spent on luxuries. Vendors of frivolities
know better than to waste time tempting those provident people. On
one occasion only did I see money parted with lightly, and in that case
the bargain appeared astounding. One Sunday morning an enterprising
huckster of gimcrack jewellery, venturing out from Paris, had set down
his strong box on the verge of the market square, and, displaying to the
admiring eyes of the country folks, ladies' and gentlemen's watches
with chains complete, in the most dazzling of aureate metal, sold them

at six sous apiece as quickly as he could hand them out.
Living is comparatively cheap in Versailles; though, as in all places
where the cost of existence is low, it must be hard to earn a livelihood
there. By far the larger proportion of the community reside in flats,
which can be rented at sums that rise in accordance with the
accommodation but are in all cases moderate. Housekeeping in a flat,
should the owner so will it, is ever conducive to economy, and life in a
French provincial town is simple and unconventional.
[Illustration: Sage and Onions]
Bread, wine, and vegetables, the staple foods of the nation, are good
and inexpensive. For 40 centimes one may purchase a bottle of vin de
gard, a thin tipple, doubtless; but what kind of claret could one buy for
fourpence a quart at home? Graves I have seen priced at 50 centimes,
Barsac at 60, and eau de vie is plentiful at 1 franc 20!
Fish are scarce, and beef is supposed to be dear; but when butter, eggs,
and cheese bulk so largely in the diet, the half chicken, the scrap of
tripe, the slice of garlic sausage, the tiny cut of beef for the ragout,
cannot be heavy items. Everything eatable is utilised, and many weird
edibles are sold; for the French can contrive tasty dishes out of what in
Britain would be thrown aside as offal.
On three mornings a week--Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday--the presence
of the open-air market rouses Versailles from her dormouse-like
slumber and galvanises her into a state of activity that lasts for several
hours. Long before dawn, the roads leading townwards are busy with
all manner of vehicles, from the great waggon drawn by four white
horses driven tandem, and laden with a moving stack of hay, to the
ramshackle donkey-cart conveying half a score of cabbages, a heap of
dandelions grubbed from the meadows, and the owner.
[Illustration: Marketing]
By daybreak the market square under the leafless trees presents a lively
scene. There are stalls sacred to poultry, to butter, eggs, and cheese; but

the vegetable kingdom predominates. Flanked by bulwarks of greens
and bundles of leeks of incredible whiteness and thickness of stem, sit
the saleswomen, their heads swathed in gay cotton kerchiefs, and the
ground before them temptingly spread with little heaps of corn salad, of
chicory, and of yellow endive placed in adorable contrast to the scarlet
carrots, blood-red beetroot, pinky-fawn onions, and glorious
orange-hued pumpkins; while ready to hand are measures of white or
mottled haricot beans, of miniature Brussels sprouts, and of pink or
yellow potatoes, an esculent that in France occupies a very unimportant
place compared with that it holds amongst the lower classes in Britain.
[Illustration: Private Boxes]
In Versailles Madame does her own marketing, her maid--in sabots and
neat but usually hideous cap--accompanying her, basket laden. From
stall to stall Madame passes, buying a roll of creamy butter wrapped in
fresh leaves here, a fowl there, some eggs from the wrinkled old dame
who looks so swart and witch-like in contrast to her stock of milk-white
eggs.
Madame makes her purchases judiciously--time is not a valuable
commodity in Versailles--and finishes,