which they considered themselves
bound to make an ample return. In England these interchanges of generosity
also take place on Christmas Day. In Russia, on Easter Day, the people, on
meeting in the street, salute one another by saying "Christ is risen."
These practices, as well as many others, have no doubt been handed down to
us from the early ages of Christianity. The same may be said of a vast
number of customs of a more or less local character, which have been
observed in various countries for centuries. In former times, at
Ochsenbach, in Wurtemberg, during the carnival, women held a feast at
which they were waited upon by men, and, after it was over, they formed
themselves into a sort of court of plenary indulgence, from which the men
were uniformly excluded, and sat in judgment on one another. At Ramerupt,
a small town in Champagne, every year, on the 1st of May, twenty of the
citizens repaired to the adjoining hamlet of St. Remy, hunting as they
went along. They were called _the fools of Rameru_, and it was said that
the greatest fool led the band. The inhabitants of St. Remy were bound to
receive them gratuitously, and to supply them, as well as their horses and
dogs, with what they required, to have a mass said for them, to put up
with all the absurd vagaries of the captain and his troop, and to supply
them with a _fine and handsome horned ram,_ which was led back in triumph.
On their return into Ramerupt they set up shouts at the door of the cure,
the procurator fiscal, and the collector of taxes, and, after the
invention of gunpowder, fireworks were let off. They then went to the
market-place, where they danced round the ram, which was decorated with
ribbons. No doubt this was a relic of the feasts of ancient heathenism.

A more curious ceremony still, whose origin, we think, may be traced to
the Dionysian feasts of heathenism, has continued to be observed to this
day at Beziers. It bears the names of the _Feast of Pepezuch_, the
_Triumph of Beziers,_ or the _Feast of Caritats_ or _Charites_. At the
bottom of the Rue Francaise at Beziers, a statue is to be seen which,
notwithstanding the mutilations to which it has been subjected, still
distinctly bears traces of being an ancient work of the most refined
period of art. This statue represents Pepezuch, a citizen of Beziers, who,
according to somewhat questionable tradition, valiantly defended the town
against the Goths, or, as some say, against the English; its