The service was mumbled through by an old priest, less to our edification than apparently to that of the reverent crowd of women worshippers who filled the building.
Scarcely a man was to be seen in church. Their Sunday duties appeared to consist in squatting in rows just outside the porch, smoking their pipes, and watching the entrance of their better halves.
In Corsica the men are not church-goers. Coming from North Italy, where the congregations are composed more of men than of women, one cannot fail to be struck by this fact.
Fillipini remarks of his countrymen that they are a religious community. He would scarcely say so now. French influence and French scepticism are already making themselves felt among the Corsican men; and the priesthood on the island does not appear sufficiently strong, as a body, intellectually or morally, to preserve their fading influence. But the men in Corte, although they may not care to go to church, yet are sufficiently orthodox to join in a good procession on St. Joseph's Day.
It was about five o'clock in the evening, when the sound of distant chanting and the hum of many voices drew us to the window.
There we saw, coming up the road under the elm trees, a troop of about sixty or seventy men and women, carrying banners and dressed in uniform.
First came the women, of whom there were not altogether more than about a dozen.
They were dressed in a pretty costume of bright blue skirt, white head kerchief, and round white cape, trimmed with blue, and they carried in their midst a banner "with a strange device," that we could not make out.
Then came men, in white shirts and trowsers, with white head-gear something between a cap and a turban, and green capes.
Then more men, with white attire and crimson capes. These capes evidently differed according to the relative wealth of the wearer, for some were of crimson silk edged with gold, and some of simple calico. These carried a large crucifix.