the road, and prepared, if necessary, to charge
the entire column of Moineau's milkmaids
and donkeys.

"You cannot pass," cried the gendarme to
the women as they reached the gate, " and
you are detained, till the authorities have
dealt with you. Get down, and enter the
octroi office."

The reader who has not seen the French
authorities deal with the French people, will
be unable to realise the consternation this
order created among the Moineau servants.
The women grew ashy pale, and shrieked,
and clasped their hands, and called upon
their favourite saints, and begged for
explanations from the peppery little man, who
looked his sternest, and was possibly
disappointed because he had not had an
opportunity of poking his bayonet, at least, into a
donkey. They went chattering into the dark
greasy octroi room, where they sat upon the
forms and wrung their hands, and implored
the octroi official to give them some clue to
the mystery. But, the official was silent.
Other milk parties arrived in rapid
succession; and were treated, as the Moineau
cavalcade had been. On each occasion the
screams, and prayers, and violent gestures
peculiar to French excitement, were repeated.
In an hour the little bureau was full of
ruddy women, and bronzed countrymen in
their blue blouses, who vented their indignation
in a series of oaths, in which the letter
r seemed to predominate.

Presently the chief of the police,
accompanied by two or three officials, and two
policemen, was seen approaching the barrière.
The excitement in the octroi bureau became
intense. The white caps of the women could
be seen, in stages, one above the other, as
they raised themselves on tiptoe to catch a
glimpse of the awful procession. The chief
looked more than usually serious; but, on
arriving before the bureau, he took no notice
whatever of the crowd of country-people
gathered within it. It was evident that his
business was not with them. They were not,
however, left in a state of suspense; since
the officials proceeded, with remarkable
vigour, to drag the donkeys from the road-
side, the animals' heads and necks stretching
to a wonderful length, before their bodies
yielded to the tugs of the authorities. In a
few minutes the pails were untied, and
arranged in a row against the hedge. It was
now obvious that the Sieur Moineau's milk
was about to undergo, in company with that
of his neighbours, the severe test that was
henceforth to be applied to it from time to
time by the representatives of the law. A
very serious-looking gentleman proceeded
with the chemical analysis. It must have
been highly unsatisfactory. Had the Sieur
Moineau mixed flour, or emulsion of almonds,
or the brown extract of chicory with his
milk, that he might, without fear of detection
by his customers, add gallons of water? The
babble of tongues under which the analysis
was conducted, prevented us from learning
the precise reason why, basketful after basketful
of the farmer's milk was sent wandering,
in a broad white line, along the open
sewer of the road. There was hardly a pailful
that escaped. The Sieur Moineau's
neighbours were not less culpable; and their
milk, too, flowed in a broad white way
through the streets of the town. In vain the
women appealed to the policemen; in vain
they assured the chief that the milk was as
it came from the cows; the official chemist
knew better, and tipped their pails over, one
after the other, without appearing to take the
least notice of their protestations. In half-
an-hour the Moineau servants were on their
way back to their master, their empty pails
jingling at their sides, and their tongues doing
their utmost to drown this jingling.

From the barrière, where the Moineau
procession was stopped and relieved of its
burden, the chief and his officials repaired in
succession to the remaining barrières around
Romanville. At each barrière the scene
already described was faithfully copied. The
women chattered, and prayed, and gesticulated;
the pails were arranged in rows, and
the milk was sent bubbling along the open
sewer. Before seven o'clock, the rich fluid
—rich even with its admixture of water, and
flour, and chicory—whitened the long line
of open sewerage across the city: a milky and
watery way drawn by the authorities as a
prompt and very impressive lesson to the
farmers round about.

And then, when the servants with jugs,
and pans, and pitchers, darted into the streets
to the accustomed gateway, under which
their milk-vendor usually sat, surrounded by
her snow-white pails, and found that she was
not there; when the rubbish-carts were in
the streets, and the chiffonniers were investigating
the worth of the cast away vegetables,
and rags and dirt piled in neat heaps before
every house; when the shutters were being
taken down from the tobacco-shops and the
grocers; and when the air was scented with
the morning rolls; the excitement among the
townsfolk became really dangerous. The six
policemen walked up and down the streets,
looking appropriately fierce and uncompromising.
They gave no heed to the stories of
the nurses who were bringing up babies by
hand, and were consequently in despair.
They were unmoved by the fact that a certain
old lady would be dead if she didn't get her
milk-soup before ten o'clock. They disregarded
the sorrow of the children, who would
have to go without puddings; and the
restaurateurs who were in despair about their
day's sauces. They had done their duty, they
said; even their chief had been compelled to
drink black coffee, and there would be pure
milk for everybody to-morrow! Pure milk for
everybody at the cost of one day's milk for
none. A day of fast was to procure a year of