lls.

As I approached the little village, the gleam of white sheets mingled
with the picture of old houses huddled together, some half-timber,
some with turrets and encorbelments, nearly all of them with very
high-pitched roofs and small dormer windows. The procession was soon
to start. I waited for it at the door of the crowded church, baking in
the sun with others who could not get inside, one of whom was a woman
with a moustache and beard, black and curly, such as a promising young
man might be expected to have. The number of women in Southern France
who are bearded like men shocks the feelings of the Northern wanderer,
until he grows accustomed to the sight. The cure was preaching about
the black bread, and all the other miseries of this life that had to
be accepted with thankfulness. Presently the two bells in the tower
began to dance, and the rapid ding-dong announced that the procession
was forming. First appeared the beadle, extremely gaudy in scarlet and
gold, then the cross-bearer, young men as chanters, little boys, most
strangely attired in white satin knee-breeches and short lace skirts,
scattering rose-leaves from open baskets at their sides; the cure came
bearing the monstrance and Host, followed by Sisters with little girls
in their charge; lastly was a mixed throng of parishioners. Most of
the women held rosaries, and a few of them, bent with age, carried
upon their heads the very cap that old Mother Hubbard wore, if
tradition and English artists are to be trusted. As the last of the
long procession passed out of sight between the walls of white linen,
the wind brought the words clearly back:

'Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et jubilatio.'

Now I entered the little church that was quite empty, and where no
sound would have been heard if the two voices in the tower had not
continued to ring out over the dovecotes, where the white pigeons
rested and wondered, and over the broad fields where the bending
grasses and listening flowers stood in the afternoon sunshine, 'Laus
et jubilatio,' in the language of the bells.

The church was Romanesque, probably of the twelfth century. The nave
was flanked by narrow aisles. Upon the very tall bases of the columns
were carved, together with foliage, fantastic heads of demons, or
satyrs of such expressive ugliness that they held me fascinated. Some
were bearded, others were beardless, some were grinning and showing
frightful teeth, others had thick-lipped, pouti