some secret pagan rites in honour of what
were once supposed the Four and only Elements
of the "World?—for fire, air, earth,
and water were all conspicuously represented
in the ceremony. The performers were exactly
a dozen men and boys, alike simply and uniformly
clad; a blue cotton jacket and trousers,
the everlasting French cap or casquette, and
a light pair of wooden shoes, being their only
garments. Shirts, stockings, and other superfluities
were dispensed with. " Did you ever
see such a lean set of fellows? " was the first
remark I could make to my astonished companion.
" Never! " was the prompt reply.
"They are as lean as cuckoos; " which is
the acmé of French imaginable leanness.

Besides ourselves (who were mere interloping
nobodies) and these pale, blue-clad,
active, fleshless men, the only other visible
figure was a very pretty girl, some twenty
years of age, carefully and neatly dressed in
peasant costume, with health and good-nature
sparkling from her eyes and blushing on her
cheeks. She looked like a Hebe that had
tripped downstairs into the bowels of Ætna,
to have a peep at the labours of the Cyclops,
and who was paying for the privilege of her
visit by the assuaging of their toil. Such, too,
was her office here. "What her nectar might
be, I cannot tell, as I did not taste it; nor
had she the politeness to offer any. But to
those who did want it her attentions were
assiduous, giving a sip to one, a draught to
another, and answering to the appealing eye
of a third panting perspiring mortal, by
fetching him some liquid of extra-coolness,
which she had purposely placed to catch the
air rushing in from the half-open shutters.
And it was little more than a taste they took
each time. None went to her; but it was
she who dispensed the welcome refreshment
to them, as they plied their various tasks
uninterruptedly. Then she vanished for a
quarter of an hour, as if she had started on
some other benevolent mission, disappearing
in the shade round a dark and dingy corner.
And then she tripped back again once more,
all fresh and smiling, to convey a drop of
cooling fluid to the lips of these lean and
thirsty living skeletons.

It requires a little close attention and a
quick eye to catch the leading idea of such a
scene of orderly confusion and methodised
bustle; but, after watching them for an unreasonable
time, I think I hit upon the secret
of their doings. Before the half-closed
shutters, and facing them, stood what seemed
to be four altars. Each altar consisted of three
parts; to the left, a small table, supporting
a large bucket of clear cold water; in the
middle, a lower table, with a smooth flat iron
top; and to the right, a small square hole,
dug in the floor, containing a, vase of incombustible
earth, or pipe-clay, and edged by
an iron pavement, like the top of the mid-altar.
Behind the altars, and not far from
them, rose a vast shapeless mass of brickwork,
whose objects and contents would have been
inexplicable, had it not been pierced with four
peering window-like holes (corresponding to,
and serving for, each one of the four altars),
through which a vast mass of fierce and
concentrated fire could be discovered to be
dreadfully raging within. The rays which
darted out from those loop- holes were
the double- distilled essence of light and
heat. The one which answered to the altar
nearest to me, shot forth such a piercing
pricking glow and glare, as to parch my skin
and blind my eyes with the overpowering
whiteness of its intensity. Lucky wert thou,
good Fridolin, to escape being thrust into such
a burning fiery hole as that! The torments
of thy substitute, however, could not have
been of long duration. In one single instant,
his vile envious carcase would burst, and
blaze, and become a mass of living coal.

In the midst of this detailed apparatus, the
rites proceeded unremittingly, ever repeated,
and constantly the same. Each altar was
served by three persons;—first, the officiating
high-priest, or souffleur, which may be translated
as the blower; next, the grand garçon,
or big attendant; and lastly, the gamin, a
Parisian title of honour, which may be rendered
as the blackguard boy, or scamp,
blackguard and scamp being understood in a
good, rather than in a bad sense; just as it is
well known that there exist in France good
devils, as well as bad ones.

And now for a revelation;—this mysterious
hot-blast establishment is a verrerie, or
bottle-glass house. The gamin, taking the lead
in mischief, seizes a bar of iron five or six feet
long, and of the thickness of a walking stick,
and first, perhaps, dipping his fingers into the
bucketfull of water, runs with it to his own
proper window in the burning fiery furnace,
dips it in, twists it about, and then trips back
with a lump of molten fire at its end. He
quickly lays the iron rod across the water-bucket,
and bathes it, at some distance from
the lump of fire, to cool it. A drop or two
had fallen into the water with a hiss and a
splash. He then respectfully hands the wand,
so charged, to his superior, the souffleur. The
souffleur rolls the bit of fire on his iron table,
till he has brought it to a shape intermediate
between a sausage and a pear. Then, clapping
one end of the rod to his mouth, he blows
fiercely, as if his cheeks would crack, like
those of poor King Lear's inhospitable winds.
The rod is pierced, and is called a canne,
being known in England by the denomination
of blow-pipe; a mouthful of air therefore
enters the lump of fire. He rolls and turns
it a few times more, and then returns it to
the ready gamin. The gamin darts to the
fiery wicket, pushes his charge into the
blazing interior, withdraws it, and redelivers
it to the souffleur. The souffleur
throws himself into an energetic attitude,
thrusts his red-hot plaything into the earthen
pot, or mould, which is fast fixed in one