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CHAPTER XXXII. 



" Went out at early morning, when tlie air 

 Is delicate with some last starry touch. 

 To wander through the Market-place of Flowers 

 (The prettiest haunt in Paris), and make sure 

 At worst that there were roses in the world." 



E. B. Browning. 



Flower, Fruit, and Vegetable markets. 



No garden in existence possesses half the variety of the flower, 

 fruit, and vegetable departments of the Halles Centrales, and it is 

 a variety that is perpetual, for every day brings fresh materials, 

 every week changes of supply. About twelve o'clock at niglit, 

 before Paris has gone to bed, the growers have already arrived on 

 the spot and begin to expose their freshly-gathered produce in the 

 market or on the wide footways of the streets around, and for 

 eighteen hours after that time the whole scene is one of animation. 

 With its merry clatter of ten thousand tongues, the Central 

 j\[arket of Paris oflers, particularly in the early morning, a never- 

 failing source of interest, even to those who confine themselves to 

 the study of the human species. But we who love Violets and 

 those little fresh Eose-buds that look as if born in May and 

 gathered before they were kissed by the sun, and on whom, 

 perhaps, the brightness of some of the faces set in the white 



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