These festivals offer to each either profit or amusement; the peasants find in them a refreshing and salutary rest from toil, the tradesman fails not to fill his pockets with their hard earnings, the clown shows off his summersets, the young men are touched with the tender passion, and the young girls, with their white teeth and sparkling eyes, await with feigned indifference the proposals of their admirers. The village fête forms a bright epoch in rustic life, and the gay hours passed at them are the happiest, the most joyous, and the most enchanting of the year.
Our ancestors, who knew and more thoroughly understood these matters than we do, who loved a laugh, the dance, and the merry outpourings of the heart, endeavoured by every means in their power to multiply them, and, after having seized upon the name of every saint in paradise, they managed to appropriate, and always for the same motive, all the various occupations known in the cultivation of the fields as a good excuse for holding more of these saturnalia. The season for sowing was one, the hay-harvest another, the wheat-harvest, the period of felling the oaks in the forest were excellent opportunities for establishing a new fête, and consequently buying a new coat, singing a carol, drinking to France, and skipping des Rigodons. For, be it said, one really does amuse oneself in my beautiful country; yes, one amuses oneself, perhaps, much more than one works; there are more Casinos built than acres grubbed up, and is not this partly the reason why the land is so badly tilled and produces only one half of what it should. But what signifies it, after all, if this half is sufficient for us. England, they say, is more opulent and better cultivated; be it so,—she is richer, she manufactures more; but is she happier?
Independently of these fêtes, the number of which is infinite, but which occur only, in each locality, once a year, there exist also those merry meetings, which, like the Sunday, are understood by the peasantry as a general holiday. Amongst these, the most animated and attractive, and more usually marked by happy incidents, is that of the first of May. At the earliest dawn of day, the tones of the bagpipe may be distinguished in the distance, coming up the principal street of the village. He who has heard this rustic sound in the happy days of his childhood, under the shade of the elms, will always love the unmusical and melancholy wailing of the bagpipe. The strain has scarcely died away when all the village is alive, every one is up and dressed in his best—the children, with enormous nosegays in each little hand, go and present them to their delighted parents, and wish them "un doux mois de Mai."
Each house, perfumed like a parterre of flowers, opens its doors, and, during the live long day, it is between friends and acquaintance a series of happy smiles, and a mutual exchange of nosegays and hearty shaking of hands. Then in the evening, when the moon has risen in the west over the fir woods, the young lads and lasses, with their fathers and mothers, saunter along the streets arm in arm. At short distances, on the roofs of the houses, are seen, elevated in the air, gigantic chaplets of flowers, illuminated by large torches of rosin. Within these chaplets are others of smaller size. A dance, grand rond, is formed by the young lovers that have carried the May to their sweethearts, who, rising before the dawn, had already gathered the mysterious declaration of love, perfumed and still covered with the tears of night. In this large circle is formed another of children, about ten years of age, and within this again, a third of quite little things; small human garlands within the greater one. And the bagpipe plays, and all the world dance, and every one is happy, and the evening breeze shaking the large chaplets above showers of lilac and hawthorn bloom fall on the dancers and rustic ballroom beneath.
To these village fêtes must be added, to complete the list of our popular holidays—the religious festivals, established by the Roman Catholic church, which, in the eyes of our rural population, are the most imposing and magnificent ceremonies of the year. These fêtes are very little known in Protestant countries; a few details, therefore, of one of them, taken at hazard, may please, or at least offer some point of interest to the reader.
In the month of June, when the heavens are all azure, when the sun smiles on us here below, and the summer flowers are all in bloom, the long-expected fête, the Fête Dieu, la fête des Roses, the feast of Corpus Christi, one of the most brilliant festivals of the Roman Catholic church takes place.
Several days before, all the houses appear in a new toilette, decked out with evergreens and branches of the vine and tamarisk, festoons of which are suspended from window to window. All the streets of the village are washed and swept, like a drawing-room. On the preceding evening every garden is opened, the borders are ravaged, baskets-full of roses, armfulls of jasmine, bunches of gilly-flowers and sweet-pea fall under a little army of scissars and white hands. The camellias complain, the heliotropes murmur, all the tribe of tulips are in low spirits, for each family gathers in a perfect harvest of flowers—every one remarks to the other—"To-morrow is the fête Dieu, the feast of roses—the favourite festival of the year." And when aurora, pale with watching, rises in the cloudless sky, when the cock, herald of the morn, proclaims the birth of another day, when the first golden ray, traversing space, lights the eastern casement, behind which many a lovely bosom heaves, with anticipated conquest and excitement, the bells of the village church are heard, and at this merry signal every one is up and soon busily engaged superintending the preparations for the day.
The streets, as if by enchantment, are carpeted with verdure; the pine, the oak, and the birch, from the neighbouring forest, contribute their young shoots and leaves; the prickly broom its yellow flowers. The façades of the houses are hidden under their various hangings, the rich suspend from their windows their splendid carpets; the poor, sheets as white as driven snow. All ornament them, here and there, with roses, pinks, and carnations. Then, at short distances down the principal street, the young demoiselles of the village erect what are termed reposoirs, a kind of chapel or altar, improvised for the occasion, which lead to an emulation and an animated rivalry perfectly terrible. It is whose shall be the largest, best, and most elegantly decorated, and these young nymphs, usually so reserved and so easily frightened, become, for this week, as bold and free as so many dragoons. They enter the house, without being announced, open the drawers, visit the secretaries, ransack the cupboards. Pirates, with taper fingers, they put into their baskets and reticules all the valuables they can lay their hands on. Objects of art they are sure to seize, more especially if they are made of the precious metals. It is who shall adorn her reposoir with gold and bronze vases, with enamelled cups, pictures, and rich crucifixes. Important meetings are held, in some secret spot, to determine of what form the altar shall be; if the dominating colour shall be blue, purple, or lilac. Then there is a consultation whether the drapery, that is to cover this temporary chapel, shall be with or without a fringe,—a discussion which becomes more entangled with difficulties than those in the Parliamentary Club of the Rue des Pyramides, as to the continued existence or demise of our poor constitution. Silk, satin, and velvet ornament the interior of the elegant edifice; the most delicate perfumes burn in each of its corners, and, in order further to embellish the altar on which the Holy Eucharist is to rest for a few minutes, there is a perfect coquetting with chaplets, festoons of gauze, crystal lamps of various colours, and transparencies through which the subdued rays of the sun shed their softened light.
And, when everything is ready, when the mass has been said, when the moment has arrived for the procession to move through the streets, the bells ring a still merrier peal, the great folding-doors of the principal entrance of the church are thrown open, and emerging from thence one sees beneath the vaulted arch, first, the great silver cross, then the banner of the blessed Virgin, carried by a beautiful young girl, dressed in a robe of spotless white; after her come several little children with flaxen heads, their hair parted and flowing on their shoulders, carrying in their hands baskets ornamented with lace, and full of poppies and corn-flowers; behind them are the children of the choir, with their silver-chased incense burners; then two deacons, one carrying on a silver plate the bloom of the vine, the other a head of corn; then four men supporting a large shield, on which are twelve loaves and a lamb, symbolical of the day; and lastly, under a canopy enriched with gold lace and fringe, the old priest, calm and grave, who carries in his hands the Holy Eucharist, followed by a long line of his faithful parishioners, with the mammas and young girls two and two, singing psalms and canticles. In this order they move along the crowded streets, which are strewn with fennel, green branches, and leaves.
From time to time the whole procession halts before some reposoir—the little girls drop three curtsies before the beautiful altar, and scatter high in the air handfuls of broken flowers, which shed a delicious fragrance around; the children of the choir wave their censers to and fro, the old priest blesses the crowd who kneel before him, and the smoke of the incense, and the perfume of the roses, ascend towards heaven as the adorations and prayers of all present ascend to God. This, the holiest and most imposing fête of our rural districts, is also the one the most loved. Pity not the peasant, pity not those who are from necessity obliged to live in these retired spots. They have their fêtes as well as the rich, happier and much more magnificent, at which they can be present and form part without paying anything. Nature, too, source of so many marvels, whether she covers the earth with a robe of verdure, or fields of golden corn, or that she shelters it under a mantle of snow, presents to the husbandman some interesting scene. Have they not also the shade and silence of the forest, the eternal freshness of the fountains?