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The way took us into an open vaulted passage, past a grating where sat a white-capped Sister, past a group of girls and boys carrying wreaths and garlands they were making ready for the Fete-Dieu, our nun explained past, at the last, a series of corridors through which, faintly at first, and then sweeter and fuller, there struck once more upon our ears the sounds of the deep and resonant chanting.
Gabriel was silent for some moments. "If the inhabitants are so religious how can you let the building remain in such a state of nudity?" he said at last. "Alas, monsieur, I have not the courage to spend the money which is needed for the poor on decorating the church, the poor are the church. I assure I should not be ashamed of my church if Monseigneur should visit it on the Fete-Dieu.
Then, as now, it was the custom in honour of the Fête-Dieu to adorn the house-fronts with garlands and draperies; and by way of variant upon this pretty custom "certain of the conquerors, more fanatical than the rest, flayed the dead Huguenots and draped their houses bravely with Protestant skins."
Acquet de Férolles, returning to Falaise with Lefebre, had gone to bed more sick with fatigue than drink; however, she had returned to Donnay at dawn in the fear that her absence might awaken suspicion. This Sunday, the 7th June, was indeed the Fête-Dieu, and she must decorate the wayside altars as she did each year.
They had scattered flowers all along the road as they do for processions at the Fete-Dieu, and the National Guard was present, acting on the orders of their chief, Commandant Desbarres, an old soldier of the Grand Army, who pointed with pride to the beard of a Cossack cut with a single sword stroke from the chin of its owner by the commandant during the retreat in Russia, and which hung beside the frame containing the cross of the Legion of Honor presented to him by the emperor himself.
"Yes, father; also to holy communion, yesterday," replied the child. "It was the Fete-Dieu, you know." "Then you are in a state of grace, my child?" "I was yesterday morning, father," replied the young girl naively, "but I have committed some little sins since then." "Then make your confession to God in your heart now. You must be in a state of grace when you speak the oath."
The bell of Etchezar, the same dear, old bell, that of the tranquil curfew, that of the festivals and that of the agonies, rang joyously in the beautiful sun of June. The village was decorated with white cloths, white embroideries, and the procession of the Fete-Dieu passed slowly, on a green strewing of fennel seed and of reeds cut from the marshes.
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