On the contrary—during times of wars without
and of terrors within, ducasses have been
encouraged by the authorities of the state,
for the declared object of making young
people better acquainted with each other,
with the ultimate view of repairing gaps in
the sadly battered population-tables: in fact,
on the same principle as Bonaparte made it
a rule to salute every woman, rich or poor,
whose appearance promised him another
subject, or soldier.

Ducasse is derived from dedicace, meaning,
originally, the holiday that was given to
commemorate the consecration of a church. In
French and Belgian Flanders, it is called
karmesse or kermesse, that is, simply the
mass of the kirk. In Brittany, amongst a
Celtic population, it is know as L'Assemblée,
and some of its minor details may have
descended from druidical assemblies. In
other districts of France, it is styled the Fête.
With us, and around us, it is the ducasse, to
which I adhere with topical patriotism.

As, in the starry heavens, there are innumerable
lights, which shine with different
degrees of brightness; so, in our Department
and in those conterminous to it, there are a
vast number of ducasses scattered broadcast
over the land, of various relative brilliancy
and attractive powers. It sometimes happens
that their attractive force varies, unlike
gravity, as the square of the distance; that
is, there is more fun in going to a distant
ducasse than to one close by, because you
have the journey thither, you have two or
three days' absence from home, and then you
have the journey back—which, to a people
who laugh at foul weather, as they laugh at
fair, who laugh at sticking in the mud, and
who laugh at finding themselves benighted
in a town where there are five times as many
visitors as beds to be had, furnishes a
wealthy fund of enjoyment. The ducasses,
like the stars, too, are catalogued; you may
find them, their dates, their saints' days,
and their periods, strictly registered in the
Almanack or the Annuaire. But also, like
the stars, they are incalculable in number;
because, in addition to the recognised luminaries,
there are nebulous, indistinct, almost
invisible ducasses glimmering here and there,
at multitudinous points of the terrestrial
globe. Then there are raccroes, resuscitation,
re-echoes of ducasses, attempting to
blink with a reflected gleam after the original
and legitimate blaze has flashed out. Our
ducasse twinkles as one of the second magnitude;
I might even say that it ranks between
the second and the first. It is not so
bright as the Dog-star, and it is better than the
Pole-star, if we leave out of our comparison the
astronomical value of the same; but I think
we are equal to any of the members of either
the Great or the Little Bear.

The heavenly bodies, we know, rise and
set continually, at noon and at midnight—in
daylight and in darkness—from year's beginning
to year's end, though we behold them
not; the ducasses rise and set continually,
from about the middle of May to the middle
of November, with an interlude at harvesttime.
Winter is a blank season, little adapted
for out-of-doors' dancing or for drinking
bowls of negus under leafless arbours. But,
soon after the cuckoo's song is heard, then
commences the ducasse migration. You stroll
abroad to breathe the vernal breeze, and find
everybody rushing to the ducasse of
Poissonville.

A stream of human beings has set in, in
that direction: on foot, on donkey-back, and
in all sorts of vehicles; in carrioles, in pony-carts,
and in long waggons crowded with
chairs—like over-furnished apartments to
let—or sometimes with only a double row of
planks for seats. Fish-women, in scarlet
petticoats, trudge along barefoot; other
smart females tuck up their gowns, and pin
the skirt behind them, to escape soiling by
dust, while their shoes and stockings repose
in close-covered baskets to be ready-cleaned
and neat against their arrival. Stout ladies—
unsteady on their pins—will march with
one shoe on and one woollen-sock, making
their husband carry the other shoe, rather
than fail to accomplish their pilgrimage.
Simultaneously with the arrival of these
illustrious strangers, Poissonville is smothered
under a flight of shrimps and shell-fish.
Women yell, "De grosses grenades!" (big
shrimps!) in tones like those of cats gone
mad. Elderly men bleat, "À moules!"
(mussels!) in a hollow voice, whose striking
resemblance to mournful "Old Clo'!" touchingly
reminds you of home, sweet home.

We wonder where all those shrimps, and
little orange crabs, and white whelks, and
black winkles, and oysters, and mussels,
found room to crawl, and swim, and lie, in
the sea.

To country families belonging to the
agricultural population and its connected tradesmen,
their own ducasse is everything—their
Christmas, their Twelfthnight, their birthday,
their all. Relations meet religiously, if matters
are right; if they don't meet thus,
something is wrong. "You didn't come to
my ducasse," it is reproachfully urged; "and,
of course, I shan't go to yours. And if we
omit going for two years running, what can
be the result but a family cut? It wasn't
my fault in the first instance; because I
made my soup and bouilli, and baked my
tartes and gâteaux, and boiled my ham, and
secured my calf's-head from the butcher's a
month beforehand, and you didn't always
think it too much trouble to drive seventeen
leagues and back in your rumble-tumble.
Why, my old aunt came eleven on her blind
mare's back!"

As may be supposed, the humbler the rank
of the parties, the more ardent and bigotted
is their worship of the ducasse. Perhaps its
most concentrated form is observable in