-Mourning.--Social Courtesies.--Popular Demonstrations and
National Commemorations.--New Year's Day.--Local Festivals.--_Vins
d'Honneur._--Processions of Trades.

Although society during the Middle Ages was, as a whole, closely cemented
together, being animated by the same sentiments and imbued with the same
spirit, it was divided, as we have already stated, into three great
classes, namely, the clergy, the nobility, and the _liers-etat._ These
classes, each of which formed a distinct body within the State, carried on
an existence peculiar to itself, and presented in its collective capacity
a separate individuality. Hence there was a distinct ceremonial for each
class. We will not attempt to give in detail the innumerable laws of these
three kinds of ceremonial; our attention will be directed solely to their
most characteristic customs, and to their most remarkable and interesting
aspects taken as a whole. We must altogether lay aside matters relating
specially to ceremonies of a purely religions character, as they are
connected more or less with the traditions and customs of the Church, and
belong to quite a distinct order of things.

"When the Germans, and especially the Franks," says the learned
paleographer Vallet de Viriville, "had succeeded in establishing their
own rule in place of that of the Romans, these almost savage nations, and
the barbarian chiefs who were at their head under the title of kings,
necessarily borrowed more or less the refined practices relating to
ceremonial possessed by the people whom they had conquered. The elevation
of the elected chief or king on the shield and the solemn taking of arms
in the midst of the tribe seem to be the only traces of public ceremonies
which we can discover among the Grermans. The marvellous display and the
imposing splendour of the political hierarchy of the Roman Empire,
especially in its outward arrangements, must have astonished the minds of
these uncultivated people. Thus we find the Frank kings becoming
immediately after a victory the simple and clumsy imitators of the
civilisation which they had broken up." Clovis on returning to Tours in
507, after having defeated Alaric, received the titles of _Patrician_ and
_Consul_ from the Emperor Anastasius, and bedecked himself with the
purple, the chlamys, and the diadem. The same principle of imitation was
afterwards exhibited in the internal and external court ceremonial, in
proportion as it became develop