“The town celebrates this feast by dances that have the appearance of theatrical representations, through the multitude and variety of the figures performed. All the inhabitants assemble, men and women alike, wear grotesque masks, and go through extravagant capers. One would think they were satyrs fooling with nymphs. They hold hands, and race through the town, preceded by flutes and violins. They form an unbroken chain, which winds and wriggles in and out among the streets, and this they call _le Grand Branle_. But why this should be done in honour of S. Lazarus is a mystery to me, as indeed are a host of other extravagances of which Provence is full, and to which the people are so attached, that if any one refuses to take part in them, they will devastate his crops and his belongings.” The carnival and micarême have taken the place of this exhibition; and no one who has seen the revelries at these by night can say that this sort of fooling is nearing its end. Now these exhibitions have become a source of profit to the towns, as drawing foreigners to them, and enormous sums are lavished by the municipalities upon them annually. The people of the place enter into them with as much zest as in the centuries that have gone by. Dancing in churches and churchyards lasted throughout the Middle Ages. The clergy in vain attempted to put it down, and, unable to effect this, preceded these choric performances by a sermon, to deter the people from falling into excesses of extravagance and vice. At Limoges, not indeed in Provence, the congregation was wont to intervene in the celebration of the feast of their apostle, S. Martial, by breaking out into song in the psalms, “Saint Martial pray for us, and we will dance for you!” Whereupon they joined hands and spun round in the church.[2]