Another Watteau, with a different instrument, has given his reality of it in the tender perpetuity of romance. Do you remember the opening chapter in "Manon Lescaut"?
"I was surprised on entering this town [Passy] to find all the inhabitants in excitement. They were rushing out of their houses to run in crowds to the door of a mean hostelry, before which stood two covered carts. . . . I stopped a moment to inquire the cause of the tumult, but I received little satisfaction from the inquisitive populace, who paid no attention to my questions. At last an archer, with bandolier and musket, coming to the door, I begged him to acquaint me with the cause of the commotion.
"'It is nothing, Sir,' he said, 'only a dozen filles de joie, that I, with my companions, are conducting to Havre, where we will ship them to America. There are some pretty ones among them, and that is apparently what is exciting the curiosity of these good peasants.' I would have passed on after this explanation, had I not been arrested by the exclamations of an old woman who was coming out of the tavern, with clasped hands, crying that 'it was a barbarous thing, a thing to strike one with horror and compassion.' 'What is the matter,' I asked. 'Ah, Sir,' said she, 'enter and see if the spectacle is not enough to pierce one's heart.' Curiosity made me alight from my horse. . . . I pushed myself, with some trouble, through the crowd, and in truth what I saw was affecting enough. Among the dozen girls, who were fastened together in sixes, by chains around the middle of the body, there was one whose air and face were so little in conformity with her condition, that in any other circumstances I would have taken her for a person of the first rank. Her sadness, and the soiled state of her linen and clothing, disfigured her so little, that she inspired me with respect and pity. She tried, nevertheless, to turn herself around as much as her chains would permit, to hide her face from the eyes of the spectators. . . . I asked, from the chief of the guards, some light on the fate of this beautiful girl. 'We took her out of the hospital,' he said to me, 'by order of the lieutenant general of the police. It is not likely that she was shut up there for her good actions. There is a young man who can instruct
