248 THE CHEVAUCHEE DE ST. MICHEL. 



Bailiff, and some of the principal residents ; a sumptuous 

 dinner took place, the Gremer made a concluding prayer, and 

 the ceremony was concluded. 



Needless to say, these obviously irrelevant customs pro- 

 voked much criticism from dispassionate observers. The Rev. 

 Thomas Le Marchant, in his " Approbation et Animadversion 

 des Lois," written in the middle of the 17th Century, complains 

 of the unsatisfactory nature of the institution for keeping the 

 roads in repair. He justly pointed out,W 1st — That the public 

 roads should be inspected at least twice a year instead of once 

 in three years ; 2nd — That the inspection should take place in 

 March or September during the bad weather, instead of in May 

 or June when they were looking their best ; 3rd — That exactly 

 the same route was always followed and many roads, and even 

 the entire Parish of St. Andrew's, were never visited at all. 

 4th — That such an inspection was surely the business of the 

 Bailiff and Jurats of the Royal Court, and not of an inferior 

 Court which did not even confine itself to its own fief, but 

 traversed the whole Island from one end to the other, levying 

 fines on persons not in its jurisdiction and insisting on the 

 reparation of roads far beyond the limits of its own territory. 

 He concluded by saying that " Toute cette cavalcade (ou plus- 

 tost mascarade) se fait tout en un jour, depuis une extremite de 

 l'lsle jusques a l'autre, et par consequent fort a la legere, en 

 tant mesure que la pluspart du dit jour se passe en ostentations, 

 menues collations par le chemin, visitation des fers de leurs 

 chevaulx et conte des cloux d'iceux, tournoyements a l'entour 

 de certaines pierres, et autres telles singeries." 



The custom, here alluded to, of counting the nails in their 

 horses' shoes seems to have disappeared in later days. It may 

 have had reference to the old superstition, recorded by Cul- 

 pepper, that the fern Botrychium lunaria — popularly known 

 as Moon wort — would " unshoe such harses as tread upon it " as 

 it has been proved that this fern, although now extinct, was 

 once found in the Island.^ 2 * 



In trying to unravel the origin and history of a ceremony 

 which was, as far as its details are concerned, exclusively con- 

 fined to the Island of Guernsey, we discover that the Abbots of 

 St. Michel claimed the prerogative of holding the Chevauchee 

 from the earliest times. For in the Assize Roll of 1309< 3 > the 

 Abbot declared " that at the end of eyreW he ought to cause the 

 rod of the Lord the King to be carried throughout all the high- 

 ways of his fee of the Vale to search whether any encroachments 

 shall have been made there. And he ought to cause those en- 

 croachments to be fined and to take the fines thereof, and so his 



(1) Tome 1, p. 88. 



(2) Flora of Guernsey by E. D. Marquand, p. 212. 



(3) Special publication of the Societe Jersiaise, p. 18. 

 (i) Eyre—" The itinerant assize of the Judges." 



