We had disturbed his siesta, and his usually even temper was the worse for it. We hastily closed the cupboard. And we knew in that moment all the horror of arbitrary decrees and special laws. The devotion of Mélanie and Stephen was but increased, as always happens in time of persecution, but mine, less lively, or of younger growth, was cooled, I greatly fear. Not long after it experienced another blow. In our town the Fête-Dieu was celebrated with incomparable pomp and display. People came from afar to take part in it. Where shall we have again such nobly imposing and magnificent spectacles? They have been replaced by gymnastic contests, or processions of mutual aid societies, the bad taste of which is heart-breaking. I pity the children of to-day who have never had opportunity to feel, amid popular acclamations and universal emotion, the imminent presence of God. The town was divided in rivalry of its wayside altars; each quarter felt its reputation at stake. They were composed of moss and flowers, lilies, hortensias, geraniums and violets arranged in the form of a cross, or ingeniously combined in pious designs of a more complicated nature. All the gardens and groves were ruthlessly despoiled on their account. The finest one was always promoted to the terrace overshadowed by ancient trees that overlooked the lake. When the morning came every window was watching the daybreak, imploring heaven for favourable weather. The streets were bordered with pines and larches which the peasants, on the previous evening or the one before that, had brought from the mountain in their ox-carts. Wreaths hung upon ribbons were thrown across the street like light cables above a stream, so that one walked about under hundreds of improvised triumphal arches. Here and there, the better to adorn the house fronts, some one had set out a table covered with a white cloth bearing pictures, vases, statuettes with a lamp, and had made ready baskets of roses for the refreshment of the angel battalion. In the poorest alleys the good wives set forth before their houses all their precious possessions, even to daguerreotypes of relatives, or their most artistically decorated caps, the better to honour the passing of the Holy Sacrament. Thus the entire town adorned itself, like a bride for her marriage.