waiting to make their first Communion. A vast number of gala carriages
were waiting at the doors to take the candidates home, and for the
rest of the day they would promenade the city in their veils and
flowers, receiving congratulations. There was a pleasant provincial
simplicity in all this and in all that followed, which brought back
certain old Sundays of a childhood spent on a hill overlooking Havre.
I liked to see the stout red-cheeked choristers perspiring with their
work, and singing with a rough stentoriousness, just as I had seen
them in the village church of Sanvic. And there was the organist
playing away at his raised seat in the body of the church, as if in a
pew, visible to the naked eye of all; while two cantors in copes
clapped pieces of wood together as a signal for the congregation to
kneel or rise. Most quaint of all were the surpliced instrumentalists
with their braying bassoon and ophicleide: not to forget the
double-bass player who 'sawed' away for the bare life of him. The ever
visible organist voluntarized ravishingly and in really fine style. I
should like to have heard him at his own proper instrument, aloft, in
the gallery yonder, quite an enormous structure of florid pipes in
stories and groups, with angels blowing trumpets and flying saints.
It seemed like the stern of one of the Armada vessels. How he would
have made the pillars quiver! how the ripe old notes would have
_twanged_ and brayed into the darkest recesses!

The Mass being over, the Swiss, a tall, fierce fellow, arrayed in a
feathered cocked-hat, rich _scarlet_ regimentals and boots, now showed
an extra restlessness. The Bishop of Douai, a smooth, polished
prelate, began his sermon, which he delivered from a chair, in clear
tones and good elocution. When the ceremonies were over, the whole
congregation gathered at the door to see the young ladies taken away
by their friends. Then I resumed my exploring.