A band of women and girls come up from the riverside, walking in Indian file, and each with a glittering copper water-pot on her head.  What beautiful water-pots these are!  They have the antique curve that has not changed in the course of ages.  They swell out at the bottom and the top, and fall gracefully in towards the middle.  As the women quit the sunshine and enter the deep shadow of the street the shine of their water-pots is darkened suddenly, like the sparks of burnt paper which follow one upon another and go out.

The sound of solemn music draws me into a church.  A requiem Mass is being chanted.  In the middle of the nave, nearer the main door than the altar, is a deal coffin with gable-shaped lid, barely covered by a pall.  A choir-boy comes out of the sacristy, carrying a pan of live embers, which he places at the head of the coffin.  Then he sprinkles incense upon the fire, and immediately the smoke rises like a snow-white cloud towards the vaulting; but, meeting the sunbeams on its way, it moves up their sloping golden path, and seems to pass through the clerestory window into the boundless blue.

Now the procession moves towards the cemetery.  It is a boy’s funeral, and four youths of about the same age as the one who lies in darkness hold the four corners of each pall, two of which are carried in front of the coffin.  After the hearse come members of the confraternity of Blue Penitents, one of whom carries a great wooden cross upon his shoulder.  Others carry staves with small crosses at the top, or emblems of the trades that they follow.  The dead boy’s father is a Penitent, and this is why the confraternity has come out to-day.  They now wear their cagoules raised; but on Good Friday, when they go in procession to a high spot called the Calvary, the leader walking barefoot and carrying the cross on his shoulder in imitation of Christ, they wear these dreadful-looking flaps over their faces.  Their appearance then is terrible enough; but what must that of the Red Penitents, who accompanied condemned wretches to execution, have been?  In a few years there will be no Blue Penitents at Figeac.  As the old members of the confraternity die, there are no postulants to fill their places.  Already they feel, when they put on their ‘sacks’, that they are masquerading, and that the eye of ridicule is upon them.  This state of mind is fatal to the conservation of all old customs.  The political spirit of the times is, moreover, opposed to these religious processions in France.  That of the fete-Dieu at Figeac would have been suppressed some years ago by the Municipal Council had it not been for the outcry of the tradespeople.  All the new dresses, new hats, and new boots that are bought for this occasion cause money to be spent that might otherwise be saved, and those who are interested in the sale of such things wish the procession through the streets to be kept up, although in heart they may be among the scoffers at religion.