hey say, is
more opulent and better cultivated; be it so,--she is richer, she
manufactures more; but is she happier?

Independently of these _fetes_, the number of which is infinite, but
which occur only, in each locality, once a year, there exist also those
merry meetings, which, like the Sunday, are understood by the peasantry
as a general holiday. Amongst these, the most animated and attractive,
and more usually marked by happy incidents, is that of the first of May.
At the earliest dawn of day, the tones of the bagpipe may be
distinguished in the distance, coming up the principal street of the
village. He who has heard this rustic sound in the happy days of his
childhood, under the shade of the elms, will always love the unmusical
and melancholy wailing of the bagpipe. The strain has scarcely died away
when all the village is alive, every one is up and dressed in his
best--the children, with enormous nosegays in each little hand, go and
present them to their delighted parents, and wish them "_un doux mois de
Mai_."

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 _fetes_ 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, a