e the same
as usual, and, despite their want of novelty, crowds of people lounged
along the boulevards this afternoon and inspected them with as much
curiosity as if they formed part of a Russian fair which had been
temporarily transported from Nijni Novgorod to Paris. What was more
attractive, however, was the show of holly, mistletoe, fir-trees,
camellias, tea-roses, and tulips in the famous flower-market outside
the Madeleine. A large tent has been erected, which protects the
sellers of winter flowers from the rain, and this gives the market a
gayer and more brilliant appearance than usual. What strikes one more
than anything else, however, is the number of French people whom one
sees purchasing holly bushes and mistletoe, which they carry home in
huge bundles, after the good old English fashion. Notwithstanding the
dampness and gloom of the weather, which hovers between frost and
rain, the general aspect of Paris to-day is one of cheerful and
picturesque animation, and the laughing crowds with whom one jostles
in the streets are thoroughly imbued with the festive character of the
season."

CHRISTMAS IN NORMANDY.

In describing the old-custom-loving people of Lower Normandy, a writer
on "Calvados," in 1884-5, thus refers to the season of Christmas and
Twelfth-tide: "Now Christmas arrives, and young and old go up to greet
the little child Jesus, lying on his bed of straw at the Virgin
Mother's feet and smiling to all the world. Overhead the old cracked
bell clangs exultant, answering to other bells faint and far on the
midnight air; a hundred candles are burning and every church window
shines through the darkness like the gates of that holy New Jerusalem
'whose light was as a stone most precious--a jasper-stone clear as
crystal.' With Twelfth-tide this fair vision suffers a metamorphosis,
blazoning out into the paganish saturnalia of bonfires, which in
Calvados is transferred from St. John's Eve _le jour des Rois_. Red
flames leap skyward, fed by dry pine fagots, and our erstwhile devout
peasants, throwing moderation to the winds, join hands, dance, and
leap for good luck through blinding smoke and embers, shouting their
rude doggerel:

"'Adieu les Rois
Jusqu'a douze mois,
Douze mois passes
Les _bougelees_.'"

CHRISTMAS IN PROVENCE.

[Illustration: PROVENCAL PLAYS AT CHRISTMASTIDE.]

Heinrich Heine delighted in the infantile childishness of a Provencal
Christmas. He never saw anything prettier in