312 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA: 
pened to be in La Place d’Armes ; and during’ 
three weeks that we remained there., I verily 
believe the bells were never suffered to remain 
still for two hours together,, at any one time,, 
except in the night. 
The funerals,, as in other Roman Catholic 
countries, are conducted with great ceremony ; 
the corpse is always attended to the church by 
a number of priests chanting prayers, and by 
little boys in white robes and black caps carry¬ 
ing wax lights. A morning scarcely ever pass¬ 
ed over, that one or more of the processions did 
not pass under our windows whilst we were at 
breakfast; for on the opposite side of the square 
to that on which the cathedral stood, was a sort 
©f chapel, to which the bodies of all those per¬ 
sons, whose friends could not afford to pay for 
an expensive funeral, w^ere brought, I suppose 
in the night, for we could never see any car¬ 
ried in there, and from thence conveyed in the 
morning to the cathedral. If the priests are 
paid for it, they go to the house of the deceas¬ 
ed, though it be ever so far distant, and escort 
the corpse to the church. Until within a few 
years past, it was customary to bury all the 
bodies in the vaults underneath the cathedral; 
but now it is prohibited, lest some putrid dis¬ 
order should break out in the town in conse¬ 
quence of such numbers being deposited there. 
