e-feast, he would go and dig a grave and nail up a coffin. He
performed those duties devoutly, and although they seemed to have no
effect on his merry humor, he retained a melancholy impression which
hastened the return of his attacks. His wife, a paralytic, had not left
her chair for twenty years. His mother is a hundred and forty years old
and is still alive. But he, poor man, so jovial and kind-hearted and
amusing, was killed last year by falling from his loft to the pavement.
Doubtless he was suddenly attacked by his malady, and had hidden himself
in the hay, as he was accustomed to do, in order not to frighten and
distress his family. Thus ended, in a tragic way, a life as strange as
himself, a mixture of gloom and folly, of horror and hilarity, amid
which his heart remained always kind and his character lovable.

But we are coming to the third day of the wedding-feast, which is the
most interesting of all, and has been retained in full vigor down to our
own day. We will say nothing of the slice of toast that is carried to
the nuptial bed; that is an absurd custom which offends the modesty of
the bride, and tends to destroy that of the young girls who are present.
Moreover, I think that it is a custom which obtains in all the provinces
and has no peculiar features as practised among us.

[Illustration: Chapter IV (Appendix)

_He fell on his knees in the furrow through which he was about to run
his plough once more, and repeated the morning prayer with such emotion
that the tears rolled down his cheeks, still moist with perspiration_]

Just as the ceremony of the _livrees_ is the symbol of the taking
possession of the bride's heart and home, that of the _cabbage_ is the
symbol of the fruitfulness of the union. After breakfast on the day
following the marriage-ceremony, comes this strange performance, which
is of Gallic origin, but, as it passed through the hands of the
primitive Christians, gradually became a sort of _mystery_, or burlesque
morality-play of the Middle Ages.

Two youths--the merriest and most energetic of the party--disappear
during the breakfast, don their costumes, and return, escorted by the
musicians, dogs, children, and pistol-shots. They represent a couple of
beggars, husband and wife, covered with the vilest rags. The husband is
the dirtier of the two: it is vice that has degraded him; the woman is
unhappy simply and debased by her husband's evil ways.

They are called the _gardener_ and