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Updated: June 8, 2025
And he struggled in vain to pierce the dense mass of Parabolani and monks, who, mingled with the fishwives and dock-workers, leaped and yelled around their victim. But what he could not do another and a weaker did even the little porter.
To see the groups of these hard-working women trudging along with their heavy creels on their backs, clothed in their remarkable costume, with their striped petticoats kilted up and showing their sturdy legs, was indeed a remarkable sight. They were cheerful and good-natured, but very outspoken. Their skins were clear and ruddy, and many of the young fishwives were handsome and pretty.
It is still damp and slimy, it is true; but from above, it is always beautiful, with its luxuriant growth of vines, and at twilight mysterious. I like as well, however, to look into its entrance from the little marina, where the old fishwives are weaving nets.
Round about these ladies an even greater number of men of what were, or passed for, eminent qualities; political for the most part, or busied with the new science of economy, like the Trudaines; and most notable among them, as the typical victim of genius of the Reign of Terror, poor André Chénier, his exquisite imitations of Theocritus still waiting to be sorted and annotated in prison; and the typical blood-maniac of genius, the painter David, who was to startle Mme. d'Albany's guests, soon after the 10th August, by wishing that the Fishwives had stuck Marie Antoinette's head without more ado upon a pike. Imagine all these people assembled in order to hear M. de Beaumarchais, in the full glory of his millions and his wonderful garden, give a first reading of his Mère Coupable, after inviting them to prepare themselves to weep (which was easy in those days of soft hearts) "
Even the morning arose with a flattering pallor. It was a gray day. The low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half mourning. "You will have a perfect day for your drive there's nothing better than these grays in the French landscape," Renard was saying, at our carriage wheels; "they bring out every tone.
But if a man be guilty of a gross offence who upon a dignified scene violates the self-restraint and respect for the company which are not only becoming, but so much assumed that whoever violates the requirement is felt to insult his associates and the public, why do we not consider whether every scene is not too dignified for mature and intelligent men to attempt to rival in blackguardism the traditional fishwives of Billingsgate?
She was "abroad" and she gave herself up to it, responded to it, in the bright air, before the pink houses, among the bare-legged fishwives and the red-legged soldiers, with the instant certitude of a vocation.
They are quite a feature of Boulogne, the young fishwives. One sees them often at low tide fishing for shrimps, carrying their heavy nets on their shoulders and flat baskets strapped on their backs into which they tip the fish very cleverly. They are quite distinct from the Boulonaises matelottes, who are a step higher in the social scale.
In short, every quaint and comical mixture of dry goods and flesh that Holland could furnish seemed sent to enliven the scene. There were belles from Leyden, and fishwives from the border villages; cheese women from Gouda, and prim matrons from beautiful country seats on the Haarlemmer Meer.
I saw a troop passing the Place du Carrousel, composed of clowns, harlequins, fishwives, etc., all rubbing their skulls, and making expressive grimaces; while a clown bore several skulls of different sizes, painted red, blue, or green, with these inscriptions: Skull of a robber, skull of an assassin, skull of a bankrupt, etc.; and a masked figure, representing Doctor Gall, was seated on an ass, his head turned to the animal's tail, and receiving from the hands of a woman who followed him, and was also seated on an ass, heads covered with wigs made of long grass.
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