more.  Retail dealers had just set up their stalls, formed of planks resting on tall hampers; and the deluge of cabbages and carrots and turnips began all over again.  The markets were overflowing.  Florent tried to make his escape from this pursuing flood which ever overtook him in his flight.  He tried the Rue de la Cossonnerie, the Rue Berger, the Square des Innocents, the Rue de la Ferronnerie, and the Rue des Halles.  And at last he came to a standstill, quite discouraged and scared at finding himself unable to escape from the infernal circle of vegetables, which now seemed to dance around him, twining clinging verdure about his legs.

The everlasting stream of carts and horses stretched away as far as the Rue de Rivoli and the Place de l’Hotel de Ville.  Huge vans were carrying away supplies for all the greengrocers and fruiterers of an entire district; chars-a-bancs were starting for the suburbs with straining, groaning sides.  In the Rue de Pont Neuf Florent got completely bewildered.  He stumbled upon a crowd of hand-carts, in which numerous costermongers were arranging their purchases.  Amongst them he recognised Lacaille, who went off along the Rue Saint Honore, pushing a barrow of carrots and cauliflowers before him.  Florent followed him, in the hope that he would guide him out of the mob.  The pavement was now quite slippery, although the weather was dry, and the litter of artichoke stalks, turnip tops, and leaves of all kinds made walking somewhat dangerous.  Florent stumbled at almost every step.  He lost sight of Lacaille in the Rue Vauvilliers, and on approaching the corn market he again found the streets barricaded with vehicles.  Then he made no further attempt to struggle; he was once more in the clutch of the markets, and their stream of life bore him back.  Slowly retracing his steps, he presently found himself by Saint Eustache again.

He now heard the loud continuous rumbling of the waggons that were setting out from the markets.  Paris was doling out the daily food of its two million inhabitants.  These markets were like some huge central organ beating with giant force, and sending the blood of life through every vein of the city.  The uproar was akin to that of colossal jaws—­a mighty sound to which each phase of the provisioning contributed, from the whip-cracking of the larger retail dealers as they started off for the district markets to the dragging pit-a-pat of the old shoes worn by the poor women who hawked their lettuces in baskets from door to door.

Florent turned into a covered way on the left, intersecting the group of four pavilions whose deep silent gloom he had remarked during the night.  He hoped that he might there find a refuge, discover some corner in which he could hide himself.  But these pavilions were now as busy, as lively as the others.  Florent walked on to the end of the street.  Drays were driving up at a quick trot, crowding the market with cages full of live poultry, and square hampers in