ere the teachers are entirely under the
Church. But almost all children have to learn the Catechism at home.
They need not understand it, but they must be able to repeat the
words. This is to prepare them for their _Premiere Communion_, or
first Communion, to which they go when they are eleven or twelve years
old. It takes place two Sundays before Easter Day.

The custom is for all members of the family to wear new clothes on the
day of a _Premiere Communion_, but the child's dress is the important
thing. In Belgian towns, for some time before, the windows of the
shops in which articles of dress are sold are full of gloves,
stockings, ties, and other things marked "_Premiere Communion_." A
boy's dress is not much trouble. He wears black trousers, a black
jacket, and white gloves and tie. But great thought is given to seeing
that a girl looks well in her white dress, and other nice new things.
She thinks and talks of nothing but her clothes for ever so long
before, and especially of her "corsets," which she then puts on for
the first time. Her mother takes her to the shop to try them on, and
is at much pains to make her waist as slender as possible. "Can't you
pull them a little tighter?" she will say to the shopwoman. The girl
has tight new shoes to make her feet look as small as possible; the
_coiffeur_ dresses her hair; and she is very proud of her appearance
when, squeezed into proper shape and decked out in her new clothes,
she sets off to church.

[Illustration: THE HOTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS.]

The children are confirmed on the Monday, the day after their first
Communion, and are then taken to visit the friends of the family to be
shown off, and to receive presents. The windows of the confectioners'
shops are full of little white sugar images of boys and girls saying
their prayers, and even the poorest people manage to have a feast of
some sort on this occasion. They often beg money for the purpose. It
is, of course, difficult for parents who are poor to buy new clothes.
But any little gifts of money which a child may receive are taken and
hoarded up to be spent on its first Communion.

All Belgian children, even those whose parents are not Catholics, go,
with scarcely an exception, to first Communion, and are confirmed, for
there may be relatives with money to leave, and they must not be
displeased.

The _Premiere Communion_ is the chief event in the life of a Belgian
child.

CHAPTER VI

CHRISTMAS I