678 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



Beads, pearls, etc., are used as amulets. Common ground glass in 

 facets is a favorite. These are shaped as beads and are arranged on a 

 string and usually worn as a collar. A particular one at the exposition 

 came from Locmariaquer, Morbihan. It was eudowed with great medi- 

 cal properties. It was a cure for diseases of the throat, diphtheria, that 

 kind of scrofula called the Mai du roi, because it is believed that this dis- 

 ease can be cured by the roi (king) if he simply touches the patient. 

 There are beads of other material. This form seems to have a high 

 reputation in this neighborhood. They should be of different materials 

 in the same string or collar. Those of amber are precious and are con- 

 sidered of great value and virtue. I have myself three or four coming 

 from that country, a half an inch long and five-eighths of an inch in 

 diameter, which have been worn until half the substance has gone, when 

 the holes have been filled with lead, bushed as one might say, and a 

 new hole drilled. The standard number of beads on a string for the 

 greatest efficacy is seven or nine, and to make them complete one 

 should be of rock crystal. The belief of the x)easants in the virtue of 

 these is widespread. They are passed from hand to hand where need- 

 ful throughout the country. Every midwife is provided with a string 

 of these beads, and all careful mothers will provide or hire a string of 

 them to be worn by their children as they approach the age of puberty. 



Limonite concretions (Pierre de la grossesse) in the form of a hollow 

 ball with detached pieces inside are of great virtue during gestation. 

 The patella and similar shells are deemed of great benefit to nursing 

 women and aiding in the secretion of the infantile food. 



The common people of France, Belgium, Ireland, and other countries 

 in Europe have a great veneration for their priests and a high regard 

 for their religion. Therefore medals and votive offerings are employed 

 extensively. These medals have been blessed by the mother church and 

 so are worn not as any particular talisman, but as au omen of good luck, 

 a preventive against the powers of evil, and a constant reminder of one's 

 vows to the church. They may be made in the form of a coin with a 

 hole or ring, or they may be oval that they can bear an image of the 

 Virgin. They are made of different metals, the most common being 

 lead or zinc, then of silver and occasionally of gold. 



The votive offerings given in thankfulness and remembrance of mercy 

 and benefits received are many. Those, of course, could not be gath- 

 ered and represented at the exposition, because they are deposited in 

 the churches and other sacred places. Occasionally they may be found 

 in the common churches, but the more sacred the church and the more 

 renowned for its sanctity, the greater the number of these votive offer- 

 ings. I have seen them in the church and at the spring of Madonna de 

 la Laghetto, near La Turbie, on the mountain just above Monaco, and in 

 the extreme southeast of France. They are to be found almost without 

 number at the grotto and church of Lourdes in the extreme southwest 

 of France, and I have seen them by the hundred in the church of Sainte 



