Page 544 sur 896

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street,

the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two

hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and

woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses,

and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The

general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed

in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a

moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary's part,

the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had

remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that

post-horses would roast.