umens that the Church herself
participated in the illumination, since in several dioceses, including
his own diocese of Meaux, a number of parishes kindled what were called
ecclesiastical fires for the purpose of banishing the superstitions
practised at the purely mundane bonfires. These superstitions, he goes
on to say, consisted in dancing round the fire, playing, feasting,
singing ribald songs, throwing herbs across the fire, gathering herbs at
noon or while fasting, carrying them on the person, preserving them
throughout the year, keeping brands or cinders of the fire, and other
similar practices.[453] However excellent the intentions of the
ecclesiastical authorities may have been, they failed of effecting their
purpose; for the superstitions as well as the bonfires survived in
France far into the nineteenth century, if indeed they are extinct even
now at the beginning of the twentieth. Writing in the latter part of the
nineteenth century Mr. Ch. Cuissard tells us that he himself witnessed
in Touraine and Poitou the superstitious practices which he describes as
follows: "The most credulous examine the ways in which the flame burns
and draw good or bad omens accordingly. Others, after leaping through
the flames crosswise, pass their little children through them thrice,
fully persuaded that the little ones will then be able to walk at once.
In some places the shepherds make their sheep tread the embers of the
extinct fire in order to preserve them from the foot-rot. Here you may
see about midnight an old woman grubbing among the cinders of the pyre
to find the hair of the Holy Virgin or Saint John, which she deems an
infallible specific against fever. There, another woman is busy plucking
the roots of the herbs which have been burned on the surface of the
ground; she intends to eat them, imagining that they are an infallible
preservative against cancer. Elsewhere a girl wears on her neck a flower
which the touch of St. John's fire has turned for her into a talisman,
and she is sure to marry within the year. Shots are fired at the tree
planted in the midst of the fire to drive away the demons who might
purpose to send sicknesses about the country. Seats are set round about
the bonfire, in order that the souls of dead relations may come and
enjoy themselves for a little with the living."[454]

[The Midsummer fires in Brittany; uses made of the charred sticks and
flowers.]

In Brittany, apparently, the custom of the Mi