He was tried some weeks later, convicted, and sent to prison for a term of three years. His nerves had been completely shattered by his long ordeal, however, and five weeks after his reception at the Santé Morant died in the prison hospital. [Illustration: "GRASPING THE MAN BY THE THROAT, HE STRUCK HIM REPEATEDLY IN THE FACE."] THE LAND OF SUPERSTITION. [Illustration: HOLDING A BOY OVER "ST. JOHN'S FIRE," IN THE BELIEF THAT IT WILL CURE HIP-DISEASE.] BY FREDERIC LEES. Nowhere in France are curious beliefs so rife as in Finistère, the Morbihan, and the Côtes-du-Nord, where most of the little-known facts contained in the following pages were collected. As to the photographs by M. Paul Géniaux, the well-known authority on Breton folk-lore, they are unique, since they represent for the first time a number of the superstitious ceremonies to which the Bretons, in spite of the spread of education, still pin their faith. We were cycling through Brittany--my Breton friend and I--and the turn of the road suddenly brought us within sight of a typical Finistère village, with its picturesque grey cottages surrounded by verdant orchards. Slackening speed, we began to look about us, and it was then that, glancing to my right down a narrow side road, I beheld a scene that made me dismount and call to my companion. "I say, Géniaux, whatever are they doing to the little chap?" I cried. "Are they grilling him for supper?" My friend's only reply was a chuckle and the click of the shutter of his camera, which, on coming to me, he had instinctively swung into the right position for a snapshot. Not until the photographic record had been obtained and the plate had been changed did he vouchsafe to give me an explanation of what we saw before us. In the middle of the road a small bonfire was merrily crackling. Over it a boy of six or seven was being held by a man and a woman, whilst three other peasant-women and some children looked on with solemn faces. What could be the meaning of this extraordinary proceeding, which looked for all the world like a human sacrifice? "No; he's not being prepared for supper," replied Paul Géniaux, with another chuckle. "That boy has something the matter with his leg--hip-disease, I should say; and these good people think they are going to effect a cure by holding him over a bonfire on St. John's Day. I hope they'll succeed. Poor little chap! We are lucky to have seen the ceremony and got a photograph, for this is one of the most curious of our Breton superstitions. I'd quite forgotten that to-day was the 'Jour de Saint-Jean.' Many a bonfire will be lit in Brittany to-night, and many a cripple will be submitted to this ordeal of fire."