trades, of all ranks and of all appearances.  Fishermen, tradesmen, peasants, soldiers—­knots of all these were there, some from curiosity or to accompany a friend or relation to the urn; some laughing, some shouting, some drinking, some dancing in a boisterous round to the music of a barrel-organ; some bawling a popular song in a gay, ever-repeated chorus; some raffling for nuts and biscuits at smartly-decked fair-booths, or playing at Chinese billiards for painted mugs or huge cakes of gilt gingerbread; some listening to the stump orations of an extempore fortuneteller, who promised the baton of the field-marshal to any conscript who would give him a penny; and some buying by yards the patriotic, soul-stirring songs of Beranger, and reciting them in every tone, in every key and to every tune.  One of these songsters was a young soldier, a lancer, with a bright intelligent look:  he was standing outside a cabaret with several companions, and trolling in a rich, clear voice a melody which seemed thoroughly to spring from his heart.  His eye alternately sparkled or dimmed as his words were animated or affecting, and the expression he breathed into his notes was full of feeling and admirably suited to all he sang.  The last stanza of his ballad was especially well given, and it seemed so entirely the interpretation of his sentiments that I am sure more than one person in the crowd must have thought that the young soldier was repeating a composition of his own.  This was the final strophe: 

  Ah, depuis si longtemps je prolonge mon reve,
  La route est commencee, il faut que je l’acheve;
        Il est trop tard pour m’arreter. 
  Que la gloire m’oublie, ou qu’elle me couronne,
  Quel que soit mon destin, a lui je m’abandonne,
        J’ai besoin de chanter.

I am not sure whether these verses are by Beranger or not, but they certainly deserve to be.

As the song ended, the market-place was being rapidly filled by streams of people who came pouring into it from all directions.  The crowd was now mostly composed of country-people, all dressed in holiday garments, but in appearance, nevertheless, for the greater part at least, the very reverse of happy.  In almost every case the families of peasants as they arrived walked into the church, of which the doors were wide open to invite the faithful to mass, and from which flowed occasionally into the tumult of the crowd without, like a little brook of pure water into a bubbling, surging lake, a few waves of gentle, calm religious music.  Each one of the poor people who entered to pray went up, as I noticed, to the charity-box and dropped in a mite, in the hope, no doubt, that this good action might buy fair fortune for a son or brother about to “draw.”  I also remarked that it was toward the chapel of the Virgin that most of the suppliants bent their steps, and more than one mother and sister, moved by a naive faith which one can only respect, carried with them large nosegays of winter flowers to lay at the feet of the Holy Mother’s image.