Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/610

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. v. JPXE, 1912.

meaning as " a boundary or land mark, consisting of a post, or stone, or unploughed balk or strip of land " ; but the earliest example given is in 1440 (here we are dealing with a form as early as 1292, and probably long before), and the word would seem to bs applicable more to the doles or portions lying in the common fields than to the grassy or artificial divisions between them. Many Midland manors have these doles (or dales, as they are sometimes called) still existing in form, or in name, but gradually disappearing.

Though Dowles lies in Salop, and adjoins Staffordshire and Worcestershire, I do not think the name has any reference to its situation or boundaries. I suggest that the name probably originates in the existence, on the banks of the river or in the forest, of a grove of trees producing freely the cotton seeds before referred to. Of course, a single tree, if of rare species, size, or habit, may lead to the same result.

It may be suggested that there is some affinity with Dowlais, Dawlish, Dowlish, but the old forms of those place -names are opposed to any connexion.

W. H. DUIGNAN.

Walsall.

THE CENTENARY OF SAINTE GENEVIEVE.

ON Wednesday, 3 January last, the parish church of St. Etienne du Mont, formerly 1'Eglise Sainte Genevieve, began the nine days festival in commemoration of the four- teenth centenary of the death of the patron saint of Paris. The inaugural ceremony was a High Mass, celebrated by Mgr. Amette, the Cardinal Archbishop.

Early on a dull, rainy morning I entered this church, where a belated, debased style of Gothic architecture tries to reconcile itself with the style of the Renaissance. The gilded tomb of the saint was lit by waxen candles of all sizes ; the tapers that can be bought for " un petit sou," and the tall, fat candles that cost several francs, burnt side by side in democratic equality. In honour of this occasion the place of the woman candle- seller was taken by a fat, jovial old priest, of the kind that adds to the gaiety of life in Chaucer's pages. No doubt his type existed also in Sainte Genevieve's day. Close by knelt a man of another stamp pale, ascetic, and earnest, whom one might put down as a young priest of the Ultra- montane school. Here and there one saw two women together, dressed quietly in

black ; an indefinable aloofness in their manner showed that they were in the world,, but not of it. As they passed by un- ostentatiously, one could not refrain from gazing with some curiosity at these laicized sisters, who have exchanged the peaceful! monotony of their convent garden for the pulsating vitality of this fascinating, wicked city.

A priest was saying Mass for a small congre- gation at an altar beside the tomb. Behind the High Altar an old woman was selling devotional books, relating the life of the saint and the miracles that have been wrought by her intercession. One may read in them the legends of those who reviled or ill- treated her during her lifetime, and were- stricken with blindness as a punishment ; but the records always go on to say that their sight was restored by means of her potent prayers. After her death the guild of the " Genovefains " was formed, and this brother- hood has recorded the many cures that have been wrought at her tomb. Once the virtue of her relics turned back the waters of the Seine as they were about to pour over the city.

Booths had been erected in the Place du Pantheon. They looked like a prolongation of the purely mundane preparations for Christ- mas on the " grands boulevards." But the articles so attractively displayed in front of the church all had a spiritual signifi- cance. Rosaries, crucifixes, medals, silver hearts, pictures of the saint, and books of devotion tempted the pious to spend a few sous as they went by.

After lingering by the tomb of the patroness of Paris, it was good to wander into the great domed building which bears beneath its pediment the inspiring inscrip- tion, " Aux grands hommes la patrie re- connaissante," where the genius of Puvis de Chavannes has done homage to Sainte Genevieve. The walls of the Pantheon formed an enlightening commentary on the ' Neuvaine et Vie,' which were being sold in the church for three sous. Under the saint, whose human qualities have been concealed beneath a mass of legend, there must have been a woman noble, strong, and much-en- during. In the wonderful fresco where Puvis de Chavannes has depicted the terror of the Parisians at the approach of Attila, her white-robed figure strikes a dominant note against the tender blues and mauves which he used with such loving skill. She stands before the terrified multitude, tense and alert, with one arm outstretched. Assuredly, in common with all those great men and.