The market!... We holiday-keepers in Moret-sur-Loing have been looking forward to it, imagining it, scanning the spot where it is held, recalling other French market-places, ever since we first bowed before the amiable patron and patronne of our hotel. Our immediate inquiry was when is the market. “Tell us,” we cried, “when we, like the villagers, may go forth in our newest clothes, in high spirits, as though to some fine ceremony, to view fruits and vegetables, gigots and rÔtis if we like, stalls of chiffons and trinkets, patent medicines, soaps, scents and——”

“A week hence, mon pauvre Monsieur,” interrupted the patronne. “The market takes place on Tuesdays only: as it is Tuesday night, you have just missed it.”

“Then,” we replied, “the week will be empty, sombre; the week will be a year, a century; but for you, Madame, and your admirable hotel, the week would be intolerable.” And the patronne bowed and smiled; we bowed and smiled, “comme dans le monde,” in fact, “en mondains.” Never was there sweeter smiling, better bowing, in Moret....

Moret at the Market.—The time of day differs in Moret-sur-Loing; differs, also, in neighbouring villages. For miles around, the clocks strike independently, instead of in chorus, so that it is ten at the station, when it is ten minutes to, in our hotel; a quarter to ten, inside the local bijoutier’s—but all hours within. When these clocks have done striking, the church clock starts; there is no corroboration, no unanimity. However... who cares, who worries? It is “almost” eleven; “about” twelve; a “little past” four; that suffices. We are late, or we are early. We get accustomed to being strangely in three places at the very same hour. Should a friend be pressed we can say: “That clock is fast”; if he weary us, we need not hesitate to declare it slow. And watches vary; time is of no moment, in Moret. Farther still from Fontainebleau, in the village of Grez, the two or three hundred inhabitants rely chiefly on the CurÉ for the hour. He alone controls the church clock; but he, an irascible old gentleman, often quarrels with the Mayor: and on these occasions stops the clock immediately, revengefully. Once the quarrel lasted three whole months: for three whole months the hands of the clock remained stationary. The Mayor protested: but the CurÉ ignored him. When at last the Mayor withdrew his objection to the point at issue, the CurÉ allowed the clock to go again. And now, if ever the Mayor and the CurÉ disagree, the CurÉ stops the clock, the Mayor protests, the CurÉ ignores him: and Grez has no church clock to tell the time until the unhappy Mayor gives in.

Fortunately for us in Moret, the Mayor and CurÉ are friends. We depend more or less on the CurÉ’s clock—most dilapidated of dials—whose solemn summons at ten on Sunday bids us attend High Mass; whose brisker chimes at the same hour on Tuesday set us hastening towards the market. Indeed, in our hotel, disdainful of its dubious timepiece, we wait for the ten strokes and after counting them join the villagers outside: knots of villagers, rows of villagers, solitary villagers, but all of them fresh, immaculate. Each woman wears a print dress, or a print skirt and camisole, a spotted handkerchief tied in a knot at the top of her head. Each man has drawn on a clean cotton shirt and his newest coat, or a blouse; his tie invariably is bright. Each girl is clad lightly, charmingly, and has becomingly arranged her hair. As for us... well, we do not seem shabby beside a painter, a Parisian in “le boating” costume: our scarf is as silken as theirs, our waistcoat is equally white and piquÉ, but our cane is undoubtedly handsomer, and we think we dangle it more elegantly.

Over the cobble-stones, avoiding the ruisseau, we go—smoking and chatting—the peasants swinging their baskets, the girls giving a last touch to their hair—an amazing spectacle.

At the end of the narrow street—the “Grande Rue,” no less!—is installed the first market-woman, with a vast basket of vegetables. And she, a wizened old thing, wrinkled and bent in half, appears to be reflecting over her poor potatoes, her shabby cauliflowers. Still, she refuses to bargain. She has but one price, and she sniffs when a would-be customer turns over her wares, inspecting them; and sniffs again when she is told that they are “bien mÉdiocres et bien chÈres.” So she sells nothing: falls into reflection again, quite forgets the would-be customer, who, turning up the next street, faces a double row of market-people established on either kerbstone, and thus comes upon the chiefest commerce.

All Moret is present, all Moret is bargaining and buying, and all the market-people are seamed with wrinkles, browned, bent; and all of them wear blouses or camisoles or print dresses, handkerchiefs or peaked caps—old, old people all of them; at all events seemingly old; weather-beaten, of the earth. Each has his or her basket, so that there are two uninterrupted lines of baskets, of little piles of paper, of measuring utensils. Every vegetable is available, every fruit. There is crying, croaking, quarrelling; there is laughter, the chink of sous. Above the din one hears:

“Trois sous, Madame.”

“Non, Madame, deux sous.”

And: “Regardez ces raisins.”

“Voyez, voyez, les melons.”

And always: “Cinq sous, Madame.”

“Non, Madame, trois sous.... Sous, sous, sous.”

Slowly we progress, meet the patronne of our hotel, the postman, the garde champÊtre, the barber and, all of a sudden, a bevy of fair Americans, daintily dressed, who inhabit a “finishing” school near by. In the village it is hinted that they are heiresses, all of them. Certainly their clothes are rich, but they carry paper bags of grapes, and eat the grapes, and dawdle... just like Mesdemoiselles Jeanne and Marie, village girls who “do washing” on the river bank every other day of the week. Also, they utter little cries:

“Isn’t that old woman the funniest thing that’s ever happened!”

And: “My! Isn’t it all too quaint!”

Here a foreigner sketches. Farther on, by the side of the church, a painter has established his easel; next him, stands a group of village women who have already done their shopping and bear their spoil. And they compare their purchases, gesticulating over this cauliflower, that salad; and soon we hear much about a certain Madame Morin who has gone home furious because Madame Petilleau carried off an amazing melon she had her eye on... just by a minute. But Madame Morin is always like that; Madame Morin would flush, lose her temper, over a single bean.

Now stalls rise—stalls of ribbons and jewellery, stalls of cheeses, stalls of sheets, curtains, all stuffs. And the stuffs are held up to the sun and considered in the shade, and compared with a complexion and wound round a waist, so that we hear:

“Ça vous va bien.”

And: “Je trouve que c’est trop clair.”

And, of course: “Trois francs, Madame.”

“No, Madame, deux francs... francs, francs, francs.”

Baskets become veritable burdens. Gesticulations grow wilder, the cries louder, the exchange of francs and sous quicker and quicker. Everyone has vegetables and fruits; many have coloured stuffs.

To and fro go the patronne of our hotel, the postman, the garde champÊtre, the barber, the Americans. To and fro go the village girls—but pause all at once before a ragged fellow whose eyes are crossed, whose face is unshaven, whose dirty hands clasp an accordion. The church clock strikes eleven. But above all these sounds rises suddenly and discordantly the voice of the man with the accordion. As he sings he leers. The village girls titter. To them, impudently and grotesquely, he addresses his eternal refrain:

Still we linger; soon we admire a group of women and children whose home is on the barges of the river bank. Barefoot, with shining black eyes and black hair, bright shawls and handkerchiefs, they add to the picturesqueness of the spectacle as they wander to and fro with wicker-work wares. A graceful English girl presents the children with grapes, and the children smile, displaying the whitest teeth. The women pounce upon stray slips of salad, broken atoms of cauliflower, and are watched suspiciously by the market-people. The foreigner sketches them; the painter evidently intends to include them in his scene—and we, also fascinated, would follow them, were we not tempted to listen to a noisy fellow who, flourishing a scrap of soap, boasts that it will blot out every stain.

How simple, how easy is it to stain your coat, he cries; then proceeds to point out stains on various coats. Fear not, however. Be not cast down. He is here, he, the enemy of stains—he with “The Miraculous Tablet.”

And the “Miraculous Tablet” is held on high and flourished to and fro, ready to render old clothes new, and soiled hats fresh, in exchange for two vulgar sous.

“Seize this surprising opportunity,” shouts the man. “Take out your stains, all of you. The Miraculous Tablet will away with them all... except stains on your conscience. I swear it, and I am honest.”

And then, continuing, he announces that the “Miraculous Tablet” has made him famous throughout the land; that clients return to him in thousands to express their gratitude; that a certain mother once shed tears of joy when he took an ink-stain out of her little boy’s white suit; that only yesterday, in Orleans, the inhabitants cheered and cheered him and, rushing forward, begged leave to shake his hand. “And,” he concludes, “believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I had not hands enough.”

Suddenly a tambourine sounds, and up the street come a man and a woman with a dancing bear, another woman with a monkey. The monkey screams, the bear on its hind legs bobs up and down, up and down, and the man encourages him gruffly and the woman shakes the tambourine.

Of course a crowd assembles, and of course cries go up. Cries rise everywhere: from the market-place, from the crowd, from the enemy of stains, from the man with the accordion, from the group around the bear; all cries, the strangest cries, all languages also—English, French, many a patois, “bargee,” the unknown tongue of the almost black people with the bear—and all accents.

Then several nuns issue forth from church and pause for a moment. The CurÉ appears. A “Savoyard” with statues—as white as his statues, for his clothes are white and his face is covered with chalk-dust—approaches. And all these different people, in all their different costumes, with different accents and different gestures, mingle together, elbow one another, and all around them are the stalls of bright stuffs, the vast baskets of vegetables and fresh fruits. In the background—grey and quaint—stands the church.

However, time is flying and luncheon hour is near. The purchases have to be borne home, washed, prepared, and so the inhabitants of Moret raise their baskets, exchange adieux. Off starts the patronne of our hotel; off go the postman, the garde champÊtre, the barber and the fair Americans—still eating grapes—to their “finishing” school. The village girls disperse, and here and there the market-people are already dislodging their baskets, counting up sous. Once again we hear of the hot-tempered Madame Morin, the triumphant Madame Petilleau. Other familiar sounds reach us as we near the end of the street: “This, then, is the Miraculous Tablet... and only yesterday in Orleans...” and for the last time, “Cinq sous, Madame,” “Non, Madame, trois sous,” and the hour being told by the church.

In the far distance, the bear is evidently dancing, for we faintly hear the tambourine. But his audience must now be small: before us, up the Grande Rue, moves a slow procession of men and women with baskets, sometimes two baskets to each person.

Still, the first market-woman does not appear to have provided them with their spoil. She alone has done no business, and sits, wizened and bent in half, over her shabby cauliflowers, her poor potatoes. Occasionally she sniffs.

But her sniff develops into a snort, when the cross-eyed, unshaven fellow with the accordion slouches up and, pausing for a moment, winks ... a fearful wink... leers, addresses her impudently and grotesquely with his eternal refrain: