46 The Popular Literature of' France. £July, 



the priory of Wetz, in Holland ? and the navel of St. Adhelme from a 

 Norman monastery ?" These spoliations gave rise, as may be easily 

 supposed, to severe reprisals, so that a particular relic taken, recovered, 

 and retaken by open force, sometimes travelled backwards and forwards 

 for months, before it found a permanent resting-place. St. Hubert and 

 his infallible greyhounds, St. Aignau, St. Clotilda, St. Lucia, St. Vigor, 

 St. Barbe, St. Michael, and St. Marcouf, and numerous other beatified 

 personages, are always the principal heroes of this pathological poetry. 

 Each of them has the cure of a specific disease; but as it sometimes happens 

 that the patient is ignorant of the precise nature of his malady, he has 

 recourse to a soil of diagnostic, which also may be traced to some 

 ancient tradition of paganism. A certain number of ivy-leaves are 

 placed in the evening on the surface of some water contained in a ves- 

 sel ; care is taken that the upper part of the leaf remains dry. To each 

 of these leaves is given the name of a saint known to cure one of the 

 complaints with which the patient supposed himself to be attacked ; and 

 the leaf which is found the next morning penetrated by the water, indi- 

 cates the saint to whom application is to be made. It is not only on the 

 strands of Bretagne, in the midst of the landes, in the depths of the 

 forests of Morvan, but within thirty leagues of Paris — in the depart- 

 ments of the Eure, Calvados, Seine-Inferieure — that these superstitions 

 still exist; as is proved every day by the judicial proceedings, in which 

 the correctional police is substituted for the inquisition. 



We have next the Histoire admirable du Juif Errant lequcl 

 dcpuis I' An XXXIII. nc fait que marcher ; the tri-logic complaint of 

 the chaste Joseph ; the misfortunes of Genevieve of Brabant — the 

 model of innocent, unhappy, and persecuted women ; the Licutenanl- 

 Gencral Holuphcrne mis d Mart, par Mine. Judith; the biographical 

 legend of St. Onuphre, whose prodigies have been realized by Franklin, 

 in ruling the thunder ; and, lastly, that pathetic canticle, Notre Dame de 

 la garde, in which the poor sailor implores the protection of the immor- 

 tal virgin against the furies of the storm : — 



" Claire etoile do la mer 

 Montrez-vous dans le danger 

 Dans la nuit la plus obscure 

 Servez de phare et de nord (boussole) 

 A ceux qui sous votre augure 

 Esperent de prendre port." 



The Virgin is also la belle lunc, and I'ancre maitresse ; then returning to 

 themselves, these tarry penitents add — 



" Chacun de nous est fache 

 D'avoir si souvent peche 

 O Dan e de Bonne Garde ! 

 Faites nous ressouvenir 

 Que partout Dieu nous regarde 

 Pour mieux vivre k I'avenir." 



There is generally mucli less poetry in the favourite works of the pojiu- 

 lace of cities than in those inspired by the solitary life of the hamlet, or 

 the adventurous career of the mariner. In cities almost all the leisure 

 moments of the lower classes are passed in noisy pleasures. They rarely 

 read any beyond a few couplets from a popidar vaudeville, slang dia- 

 logues, witticisms of the barracks, the life of some hero of the gibbet. 



