They were mostly young women, with bare heads, or with kerchiefs tied
over their hair, and they displayed extraordinary effrontery. Even the
old ones were scarcely more discreet. With parcels of tapers under their
arms, they brandished the one which they offered for sale and even thrust
it into the hand of the promenader. "Monsieur," "madame," they called,
"buy a taper, buy a taper, it will bring you luck!" One gentleman, who
was surrounded and shaken by three of the youngest of these harpies,
almost lost the skirts of his frock-coat in attempting to escape their
clutches. Then the scene began afresh with the bouquets--large round
bouquets they were, carelessly fastened together and looking like
cabbages. "A bouquet, madame!" was the cry. "A bouquet for the Blessed
Virgin!" If the lady escaped, she heard muttered insults behind her.
Trafficking, impudent trafficking, pursued the pilgrims to the very
outskirts of the Grotto. Trade was not merely triumphantly installed in
every one of the shops, standing close together and transforming each
street into a bazaar, but it overran the footways and barred the road
with hand-carts full of chaplets, medals, statuettes, and religious
prints. On all sides people were buying almost to the same extent as they
ate, in order that they might take away with them some souvenir of this
holy Kermesse. And the bright gay note of this commercial eagerness, this
scramble of hawkers, was supplied by the urchins who rushed about through
the crowd, crying the "Journal de la Grotte.
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