A tour through the Pyrenees . atter excepted and a few magnificent pairsof velvet breeches, the festival was the same asthat at Aas. What we go there to see is theprocession. At first everybody attends vespers ; the womenin the sombre nave of the church, the men in agallery, the small boys in a second gallery higherup, under the eye of a frowning young girls, kneeling close to the gratings of the choir, repeated Ave Marias, to which the deepvoice of the congregation responded; their clear,metallic voices formed a pretty contrast to the hol-low buzzing of the resounding respons
A tour through the Pyrenees . atter excepted and a few magnificent pairsof velvet breeches, the festival was the same asthat at Aas. What we go there to see is theprocession. At first everybody attends vespers ; the womenin the sombre nave of the church, the men in agallery, the small boys in a second gallery higherup, under the eye of a frowning young girls, kneeling close to the gratings of the choir, repeated Ave Marias, to which the deepvoice of the congregation responded; their clear,metallic voices formed a pretty contrast to the hol-low buzzing of the resounding responses. Somewolfish-looking old mountaineers, from thirty milesaway, made the blackened wood of the balustradecreak as they clumsily bent the knee. A twilightfell on the dense crowd, and made yet darker theexpression of those energetic countenances. Onemight have fancied himself in the sixteenth 192 THE VALLEY OF OSSAU. Book II. century. Meanwhile the httle bells chattered joy-ously with their shrill voices, and made all possible. noise, like a roost full of fowls at the top of thewhite tower. At the end of an hour, the procession arrancreditself very artistically and went forth. The firstpart of the cortei^e was aniusiuL;- : two rows oflittle scapes-races in red vests, their hands claspedover their bellies, in order to keep their book in Chap. VI. THE INHABITANTS. 193 place, tried to give themselves an air of compunc-tion, and looked at each other out of the cornersof their eyes in a manner truly comical. Thisband of masquerading monkeys was led by a jollystout priest, whose folded bands, cuffs, and hang-ing laces fluttered and waved like wings. Thena sorry beadle, in a soiled douanier s coat; thena fine maire in uniform, with his sword at his side ;then two long seminarians, two plump little priests,a banner of the Virgin, finally all the douaniers andall the gendarmes of the country; in short, all thegrandeurs, all the splendors, all the actors of civil-ization. The Barbarians h
Size: 1570px × 1590px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishernewyorkhholtandcom
