re the
most imposing and magnificent ceremonies of the year. These _fetes_ 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 _fete_, the _Fete Dieu_, _la fete des Roses_, the feast of
Corpus Christi, one of the most brilliant festivals of the Roman
Catholic church takes place.

Several days before, all the houses appear in a new toilette, decked out
with evergreens and branches of the vine and tamarisk, festoons of which
are suspended from window to window. All the streets of the village are
washed and swept, like a drawing-room. On the preceding evening every
garden is opened, the borders are ravaged, baskets-full of roses,
armfulls of jasmine, bunches of gilly-flowers and sweet-pea fall under a
little army of scissars and white hands. The camellias complain, the
heliotropes murmur, all the tribe of tulips are in low spirits, for each
family gathers in a perfect harvest of flowers--every one remarks to the
other--"To-morrow is the _fete Dieu_, the feast of roses--the favourite
festival of the year." And when aurora, pale with watching, rises in the
cloudless sky, when the cock, herald of the morn, proclaims the birth of
another day, when the first golden ray, traversing space, lights the
eastern casement, behind which many a lovely bosom heaves, with
anticipated conquest and excitement, the bells of the village church
are heard, and at this merry signal every one is up and soon busily
engaged superintending the preparations for the day.

The streets, as if by enchantment, are carpeted with verdure; the pine,
the oak, and the birch, from the neighbouring forest, contribute their
young shoots and leaves; the prickly broom its yellow flowers. The
facades of the houses are hidden under their various hangings, the rich
suspend from their windows their splendid carpets; the poor, sheets as
white as driven snow. All ornament them, here and there, with roses,
pinks, and carnations. Then, at short distances down the principal
street, the young _demoiselles_ of the village erect what are termed
_reposoirs_, a kind of chapel or altar, improvised for the occasion,
which lead to an emulation and an animated rivalry perfectly terrible.
It is whose shall be th