to draw
upon, or even Counts of Janenne to draw. But before things came to this
pass the absentee Counts had always sent a representative to join the
procession to the shrine of Our Lady of Lorette; and it has come about
that the legend has clung in the popular fancy even unto the present
day. Somebody--anybody--gets himself up in theatrical guise, and rides
at the head of the military forces, between the first rank and the
commander-in-chief, as the representative of that extinct great house.
On this occasion it was a red-cheeked shy young man, cousin to the
chambermaid of the Hotel des Postes, a peasant proprietor who farmed,
and still farms, some ten or a dozen hectares of sour land on the road
to Montcourtois. The red-cheeked shy young man's female cousin exchanged
a red-cheeked, shame-faced, rustic grin with him as he rode by, and the
young man, in imitation of Monsieur Dorn, made his horse caracole, but
being less versed in horsemanship than the old _gendarme_, had to hold
on ignominiously by the mane in payment for his own temerity.

Following the military came a long array of little girls in white
muslin, with sashes blue or red. Half a dozen nuns kept watch over them,
pacing sombre in white head-dresses and black gowns by the side of all
that smiling troop of glad hearts and childish faces. All the little
girls carried bannerets of bright colour, and all went bareheaded,
after the manner of the district, where no woman, short of the highest
fashion, ever permits herself to wear hat or bonnet, except when going
to mass or upon a railway journey. White childish locks, braided and
shining, red locks, brown locks, black locks, with bright faces under
all, went streaming by, and then a solemn priest or two headed a
rambling host of lads with well-scrubbed cheeks and clean collars, and
decent raiment of church-going Sunday black. Then came a flock of young
women in white muslin, very starched and stiff, with blue bows and blue
sashes. In front of these two stalwart wenches bore a flapping banner,
inscribed 'La Jeunesse de Janenne'; and closing up the rank of Janenne's
youth and rustic beauty came half a dozen chosen damsels, big limbed and
strong, bearing on their shoulders a huge waxen statue of Our Lady of
Lorette, and in her arms a crowned child, she herself being crowned with
glittering tinsel, and robed in a glowing and diaphanous stuff, which
only half revealed the white satin and spangles of the dress below
i