the different chapels which rather takes away from the devotional aspect.  Unfortunately the sermon had only just begun, so we didn’t hear any music.  The organ is very fine and they have a very good choir.  Neither did we hear the famous chimes, which we regretted very much.  Some of the bells have a beautiful sound—­one in particular, that used to be at St. Jean de Vignes, has a wonderful deep note.  One hears it quite distinctly above all the others.  All the bells have names.  This one used to be called “Simon,” after a Bishop Simon le Gras, who blessed it in 1643.  When the voice got faint and cracked with age, it was “refondue” (recast) and called Julie Pauline.

It was quite dark and cold when we started back.  We had to light our big lantern almost as soon as we left Soissons.  For some little time after we got out of the town we met people walking and driving—­all with holiday garbs and faces—­but once we plunged in the long forest alleys we were absolutely cut off from the outside world.  It is a curious sensation I have never got accustomed to, those long, dark, lonely forest roads.  The leaves were still so thick on the trees that we could hardly see the last glow of a beautiful orange sunset.  The only sign of life was a charbonnier’s hut in a clearing quite close to the road.  They had a dull light; just enough to let us see dusky figures moving about.

This morning our church looked quite different—­no more banners, embroideries or bright flowers, all draped in black and a bier covered with a black pall in the middle of the aisle—­the cure in a black satin vestment; all the congregation in black.  I went out before the end of the service.  All the black draperies and the black kneeling figures and the funeral psalms were so inexpressibly sad and dreary.  I was glad to get out into the sunshine and to the top of the hill, where the cemetery gates stood wide open and the sun was streaming down on all the green graves with their fresh flowers and plants.  Soon we heard the sound of the chaunt, and the procession wound slowly up the steep, straggling village street.  A banner and cross carried by the boys and girls—­then the cure, with his “ostensoir,” followed by his “enfants de choeur” carrying books and tapers, then the congregation.  There were a great many people already in the cemetery.  The little procession halted at the foot of the cross in the middle.  There were several prayers and psalms, and then the cure made the tour of the cemetery, sprinkling all the graves with holy water and saying a short prayer at each.  The procession broke up into groups, all kneeling at the different graves praying for their dead.  There were not many men; a few old ones.  They were not kneeling, but stood reverently, with bowed heads, when the cure passed.  It was a pretty sight—­the kneeling figures, the flower-covered graves, the little procession winding in and out among the tombstones, the white soutanes of the boys shining in the sun and not a sound except the droning of the chaunts.  As it was fete—­one of the great religious fetes of the year—­there was no work going on—­no labourers in the fields, no carts on the road—­nothing but the great stillness of the plains.