That is how they amuse themselves in Normandy on a wedding day.

FATHER MATTHEW

We had just left Rouen and were galloping along the road to Jumieges.  The light carriage flew along across the level country.  Presently the horse slackened his pace to walk up the hill of Cantelen.

One sees there one of the most magnificent views in the world.  Behind us lay Rouen, the city of churches, with its Gothic belfries, sculptured like ivory trinkets; before us Saint Sever, the manufacturing suburb, whose thousands of smoking chimneys rise amid the expanse of sky, opposite the thousand sacred steeples of the old city.

On the one hand the spire of the cathedral, the highest of human monuments, on the other the engine of the power-house, its rival, and almost as high, and a metre higher than the tallest pyramid in Egypt.

Before us wound the Seine, with its scattered islands and bordered by white banks, covered with a forest on the right and on the left immense meadows, bounded by another forest yonder in the distance.

Here and there large ships lay at anchor along the banks of the wide river.  Three enormous steam boats were starting out, one behind the other, for Havre, and a chain of boats, a bark, two schooners and a brig, were going upstream to Rouen, drawn by a little tug that emitted a cloud of black smoke.

My companion, a native of the country, did not glance at this wonderful landscape, but he smiled continually; he seemed to be amused at his thoughts.  Suddenly he cried: 

“Ah, you will soon see something comical—­Father Matthew’s chapel.  That is a sweet morsel, my boy.”

I looked at him in surprise.  He continued: 

“I will give you a whiff of Normandy that will stay by you.  Father Matthew is the handsomest Norman in the province and his chapel is one of the wonders of the world, nothing more nor less.  But I will first give you a few words of explanation.

“Father Matthew, who is also called Father ‘La Boisson,’ is an old sergeant-major who has come back to his native land.  He combines in admirable proportions, making a perfect whole, the humbug of the old soldier and the sly roguery of the Norman.  On his return to Normandy, thanks to influence and incredible cleverness, he was made doorkeeper of a votive chapel, a chapel dedicated to the Virgin and frequented chiefly by young women who have gone astray . . . .  He composed and had painted a special prayer to his ‘Good Virgin.’  This prayer is a masterpiece of unintentional irony, of Norman wit, in which jest is blended with fear of the saint and with the superstitious fear of the secret influence of something.  He has not much faith in his protectress, but he believes in her a little through prudence, and he is considerate of her through policy.

“This is how this wonderful prayer begins: 

“’Our good Madame Virgin Mary, natural protectress of girl mothers in this land and all over the world, protect your servant who erred in a moment of forgetfulness . . .’