the mud, with the sharp November
wind whistling in her thin skirts, she no longer thought of her
journey. She was a good creature sixty years old, who still supported
two children of her son who died some years before. To travel round
the country at that age, with the sun and rain and snow on your back,
to sleep in barns and stables on straw, and three-quarters of the time
have only potatoes to eat and not enough of them, does not make one
despise a plate of good hot soup, a piece of smoked bacon and cabbage,
with two or three glasses of wine to warm the heart. No, you must look
at things as they are, the life of these poor people is very hard,
every one would do well to try a pilgrimage on his own account.

Anna-Marie understood the difference between being at table and on the
road, she ate with a good appetite, and she took real pleasure in
telling us what she had seen during her last round.

"Yes," said she, "everything is going on well now. All the processions
and expiations which you have seen are nothing, they will grow larger
and more imposing from day to day. And you know there are missionaries
coming among us, as they used to do among the savages, to convert us.
They are coming from Mr. de Forbin-Janson and Mr. de Ranzan, because
the corruption of the times is so great. And the convents are to be
rebuilt, and the gates along the roads restored, as they were before
the twenty-five years' rebellion. And when the pilgrims arrive at the
convents, they will only have to ring and they will be admitted at
once, when the brothers who serve, will bring them porringers of rich
soup with meat on ordinary days, and vegetable soup with fish on
Fridays and Saturdays and during Lent. In that way piety will
increase, and everybody will make pilgrimages. But the pious women of
Bischoffsheim say, that only those who have been pilgrims from father
to son, like us, ought to go; that each one ought to attend to his
work, that the peasants should belong to the soil, and that the lords
should have their chateaux again, and govern them. I heard this with
my own ears from these pious women, who are to have their properties
again because they have returned from exile, and that they must have
their estates in order to build their chapels is very certain. Oh! if
that were only done now, so I could profit by it in my old age! I have
fasted long enough, and my little grandchildren also. I would take
them with me, and the pries