so often and so energetically, in his dealings with his councillors,
that 'true civil liberty in a State depends upon the absolute safety of
property,' there began to grow up in Artois a great middle class of
landholders, corresponding in many conditions to the 'strong farmers' of
Ireland. With the increase of this class came a natural increase in the
importance and influence of the notaries, already and through the
Spanish traditions very considerable in this region. In many parts of
the province the notary is recognised as an unofficial, but
authoritative, social arbiter, to whom may be safely referred for
settlement all sorts of disputes, including very often questions of
property which would elsewhere be taken before the courts of law. It was
pleasant to see that the relation thus established between M. Labitte
and the people generally had not been affected by the political
agitation of the last ten years. When I drove about the country with
him, I observed that he was saluted everywhere in the friendliest
fashion, and that, as he more than once told me, by persons politically
quite hostile to his re-election as councillor-general.

After luncheon on Pentecost, a most interesting ceremony took place at
St.-Quentin. A long procession made up of the inhabitants of the
commune, the men wearing their best clothes, the young girls garlanded
and dressed in white, set forth from the porch of the church, after a
brief service there, and marched around the commune. It was the English
beating of the bounds without the beating, and with the old religious
rites. In the midst of the procession, which extended perhaps a quarter
of a mile, the parish priest walked alone under an embroidered canopy
borne up by young villagers. Acolytes, with lighted candles, moved on
either side of the canopy. Before it was borne a white silk banner of
the Virgin, and behind it a banner embroidered in gold. All the park and
grounds of M. Labitte lying within the commune, and being thrown open to
the people, a very beautiful altar of verdure and roses had been set up
under a bower in the great garden behind the house, by the daughter of
M. Labitte. Before this altar the procession paused, a brief service was
performed there, and then the long line resumed its march, a chorus of
some twenty male voices chanting, as it went, the Magnificat. Nothing
could exceed the unaffected simplicity and seriousness of the people of
both sexes and of all ages. The d