ocessions got home after that you may
imagine for yourself. It says much for the control of the respective
clergy that there were no open blows at once. But that night St.
Nicaise was vulgarly merry, and St. Godard wrapped its wrongs in
ominous and aristocratic silence. What the songs were that those
workmen sang in the cemetery of St. Nicaise you can read in a queer
little book written by one "Abbe Raillard" in 1557, an "Abbe des
Conards," who imitates Rabelais when he tries to be original, but is
of far more value when he merely reproduces what he heard, to wit, "la
fleur des plus ingenieux jeux chansons et menus flaiollements d'icelle
jeunesse puerille, receuilly de plusieurs rues lieux et passages ou il
estoit repandu depuis la primitive recreation, aaze, jeunesse et
adolescence Normande rouennoise."

Here is a chorus which no doubt resounded on that night of victory
over St. Godard--

"Jay menge un oeuf
La lange dun boeuf
Quatre vingt moutons
Autant de chapons
Vingt cougnons de pain
Ancore ayge faim,"

or this, again--

"Gloria patri ma mere a petri
Elle a faict une gallette
Houppegay, Houppegay j'ay bu du cidre Alotel (_bis_)."

Unfortunately, after having gone shouting to bed, the men of St.
Nicaise slept sound without a thought of possible reprisals. But the
young bloods "across the way" were all alert. Waiting till the change
of guard at St. Hilaire should make that customary noise of clinking
arms and tramping feet which every citizen would recognise and forget,
sixty of the bravest champions crossed the Rubicon and advanced in the
depth of the darkness to the cemetery of St. Nicaise. With heavy
labour they broke up the sacred chains, detached the time-worn rivets,
and dragged off the famous timber, the "_Boise_" of St. Nicaise, the
palladium of the obnoxious parish. The next morning the gossips
discovered to their stupefaction that there was no log to sit upon!
Following a few traces that were left here and there, the horrified
drapers and tanners found the smoking remnants of their cherished wood
scattered in the square of St. Hilaire, surrounded by a laughing crowd
of the children and young men of St. Godard. Vengeance was plotted on
that very evening, and a smart skirmish took place up and down the
streets of the aristocratic quarter, in which the victory of the
velvet doublets only roused redoubled ardour in the men of smocks and
leather apro