The local
authorities, who had doubtless counted on selling it and seeing
houses built upon it, were evidently unable to find a purchaser. The
recollection of the heaps of bones and the cart persistently jolting
through the streets may have made people recoil from the spot; or
perhaps the indifference that was shown was due to the indolence, the
repugnance to pulling down and setting up again, which is characteristic
of country people. At all events the authorities still retained
possession of the ground, and at last forgot their desire to dispose of
it. They did not even erect a fence round it, but left it open to all
comers. Then, as time rolled on, people gradually grew accustomed to
this barren spot; they would sit on the grass at the edges, walk about,
or gather in groups. When the grass had been worn away and the
trodden soil had become grey and hard, the old cemetery resembled a
badly-levelled public square. As if the more effectually to efface the
memory of all objectionable associations, the inhabitants slowly changed
the very appellation of the place, retaining but the name of the saint,
which was likewise applied to the blind alley dipping down at one corner
of the field. Thus there was the Aire Saint-Mittre and the Impasse
Saint-Mittre.
All this dates, however, from some considerable time back. For more
than thirty years now the Aire Saint-Mittre has presented a different
appearance. One day the townspeople, far too inert and indifferent to
derive any advantage from it, let it, for a trifling consideration,
to some suburban wheelwrights, who turned it into a wood-yard.
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