Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/39

Rh among the streets, and this they call le Grand Branle. But why this should be done in honour of S. Lazarus is a mystery to me, as indeed are a host of other extravagances of which Provence is full, and to which the people are so attached, that if any one refuses to take part in them, they will devastate his crops and his belongings."

The carnival and micarême have taken the place of this exhibition; and no one who has seen the revelries at these by night can say that this sort of fooling is nearing its end. Now these exhibitions have become a source of profit to the towns, as drawing foreigners to them, and enormous sums are lavished by the municipalities upon them annually. The people of the place enter into them with as much zest as in the centuries that have gone by.

Dancing in churches and churchyards lasted throughout the Middle Ages. The clergy in vain attempted to put it down, and, unable to effect this, preceded these choric performances by a sermon, to deter the people from falling into excesses of extravagance and vice. At Limoges, not indeed in Provence, the congregation was wont to intervene in the celebration of the feast of their apostle, S. Martial, by breaking out into song in the psalms, "Saint Martial pray for us, and we will dance for you!" Whereupon they joined hands and spun round in the church. This leads to the mention of what is of no small interest in the history of the origin of part-singing. Anyone familiar with vespers, as performed in French churches, is aware that psalms and canticles are sung in one or other fashion: either alternate verses alone are