Each house, perfumed like a parterre of flowers, opens its doors, and, during the live long day, it is between friends and acquaintance a series of happy smiles, and a mutual exchange of nosegays and hearty shaking of hands. Then in the evening, when the moon has risen in the west over the fir woods, the young lads and lasses, with their fathers and mothers, saunter along the streets arm in arm. At short distances, on the roofs of the houses, are seen, elevated in the air, gigantic chaplets of flowers, illuminated by large torches of rosin. Within these chaplets are others of smaller size. A dance, _grand rond_, is formed by the young lovers that have carried the May to their sweethearts, who, rising before the dawn, had already gathered the mysterious declaration of love, perfumed and still covered with the tears of night. In this large circle is formed another of children, about ten years of age, and within this again, a third of quite little things; small human garlands within the greater one. And the bagpipe plays, and all the world dance, and every one is happy, and the evening breeze shaking the large chaplets above showers of lilac and hawthorn bloom fall on the dancers and rustic ballroom beneath. To these village _fêtes_ must be added, to complete the list of our popular holidays--the religious festivals, established by the Roman Catholic church, which, in the eyes of our rural population, are the most imposing and magnificent ceremonies of the year. These _fêtes_ are very little known in Protestant countries; a few details, therefore, of one of them, taken at hazard, may please, or at least offer some point of interest to the reader. In the month of June, when the heavens are all azure, when the sun smiles on us here below, and the summer flowers are all in bloom, the long-expected _fête_, the _Fête Dieu_, _la fête des Roses_, the feast of Corpus Christi, one of the most brilliant festivals of the Roman Catholic church takes place.