September brought the retreat, and the great pilgrimage, which lasts
eight days. The first visitors to arrive were the beggars and small
vendors of _objets de piété_. Some came in little carts, which looked
as if they had been made at home out of grocers' boxes, and to which
dogs were harnessed. At their approach all the Roc-Amadour dogs barked
bravely, just as in the old days when the song was written of the
'beggars coming to town.' Others trudged in with their bundles upon
their backs, hobbling, hungry and thirsty, but eager for the fray.
Some in a larger way of business came in all sorts of vehicles, and a
bazaar man arrived in a caravan of his own. Then followed the crowd of
genuine pilgrims, nearly all of them peasants, humbly clad, but with
money in their pockets which they were determined not to spend
foolishly upon meat, drink, and lodging, for the good of their souls
was uppermost in their minds, and the length of their stay would
depend upon their success in making the money last. By far the greater
number were women, and the many bent backs and withered faces among
them were a pretty safe sign that they had not all come to implore the
aid of the Virgin in that special form of domestic trouble from which
so many thousands have sought relief century after century in her
sanctuary of Roc-Amadour.

The plain white linen coif--very ugly, but delightfully
primitive--worn by a large proportion of these peasants showed that
they had crossed the Dordogne from the Bas-Limousin. Many had come all
the way on foot, taking a couple of days or more for the journey, and
a few had trudged over the hot roads and stony _causses_[*] barefoot,
just like pilgrims of the Middle Ages.

[*] This Languedocian word, which has come to be generally used in