anon, the wanderer stumbles on a pile of trodden grapeskins; and one, at least, of the narrow streets of Conques was ruddy with tricklings of juice from such refuse heaps; while here and there outside some cooper's shop, as at Marcillac for instance, a brand-new vat met the eye, bigger round at the lower end than the top, and destined to serve as a winepress at the approaching harvest. Every market-place is transformed into a picture by piles of white and purple grapes; every board, however homely, groans under the burthen of the poetic fruit.

The fact that you are in the land of the vine is yet further forced on your notice by many a highwheeled, narrow country cart, each laden with its single huge wine cask, and by every goods' train on the railway being charged with scores of such on their way to other climes and scenes. In meeting any of these carts thus laden, or as you pass by some of the capacious cellars with unglazed windows where the liquor is stored, or come across any of the heaps of squeezed-out grapeskins above referred to the air being scented all round by the perfume of the national beverage—you are reminded once and again of the Vintage and its accompanying incidents. Nor was the religious house at which the traveller had taken up his temporary quarters during this joyous season free

from the general contagion; half of the brotherhood being absent for some days in the height of the vintage reaping the crop on an estate they own a dozen miles away. For, among recent donations to this House is a valuable range of vineyard presented by a French curé still living, on the not unreasonable condition that the convent shall find him in wine for the rest of his days.

The extent of the interests involved in the vine culture may be inferred from a calculation lately made, showing that the annual produce of the vintage throughout France ranges between 900 million and 1,900 million gallons of wine, and that the average export from Bordeaux, the capital of Guienne, is 44 million gallons. It further appears that more than a twentieth of all the wine made in France is raised in the single department of the Gironde, answering to the old province of the Bordelais, and the principal home of the grape whence flows the choice purple juice which we call Claret. Thus in the year 1875. (the largest vintage on record) the Gironde alone turned out more than 100 million gallons of wine; the yield for the whole of France in that year being estimated at some 1,900 million gallons. The culture of the vine extends over six and a half million acres, which is equal to 292 gallons on an average for each acre under cultivation.

In the early days of October, when all hands are making ready for the opening of the vintage that is to result in this vast output, the parishioners of Conques assemble in the stately parish church to celebrate the festival of their patron saint, Ste.-Foy, on which occasion, if the fruit of the vine does not directly figure, except in so far as it necessarily does in the Eucharistic celebration, a magnificent display of floral decoration is presented by the High Altar and its surroundings to the gaze of an admiring peasantry. Scores upon scores of huge pots of carefully tended flowers stand in tiers on the successive steps of a wooden framework rising to a considerable elevation on either side of the altar; while the whole chancel is as redolent of perfume as it is a-blaze with colour. The effect of so large a concentration of flowers artistically arranged is increased by a red curtain suspended from behind, which throws forward the rich mass of variegated tints, to which itself serves as a brilliant background. Yet the contrivers of this ecclesiastical flower show, not content with the profusion of bloom thus brought together, call in the aid of artificial flowers to heighten the glow, and intensify the body of colour; the combination of the two producing a by no means unsatisfactory effect, so much so indeed that it was difficult to detect the presence of manufactured specimens till

after a close scrutiny at the end of the ceremony. Thus, if this Church spectacle cannot exactly be called a Feast of Bacchus, it may at any rate be regarded as, in a sense, a Festival of Flora, the celebration of which coincides with, and heralds in, the approaching Vintage.

87

CHAPTER IX.

WALKS BY HILL AND DALE.

A water-lashed Precipice.-Roque-Prive.-Over the hills with Swiss Chorister.—A Walk and Talk by the riverside.—Excursion to St.-Projet.-The curate of Pomiers.

AMONG the excursions made by the writer in the immediate neighbourhood of Conques were some walks with different members of the brotherhood, one of which has been touched upon in a previous chapter. On the day following the Mountain Storm three or four of the brethren, their guest, and a nephew of the Prior made up a party for a second afternoon's walk. The nephew of Prior Thomas d'Aquin was a sprightly young Provençal on a visit to his uncle, who remarked that his kinsman would be pleased to have an opportunity of airing his English, in which language indeed he proved to have already made creditable progress. The friends of the English traveller were kind enough to desire to show him the view from a ledge of rock, which, overlapping the river Dourdou