There were a great many children: little girls all in white, like brides, and little bareheaded boys, with curly hair, dressed in their best, like princes, already looking in every direction to find where their mothers were.

A splendid fellow, nine years of age, walked by himself in the middle, clad like Saint John the Baptist, with a sheepskin over his thin, bare shoulders.

Four little girls, covered with pink ribbons, bore a shield on which was a sheaf of ripe wheat.

Then there were young girls grouped around a banner of the Blessed Virgin; ladies in black, who also had their special banner of crimson silk, on which was embroidered a portrait of Saint Joseph.

There were other and still other banners, in velvet or in satin, balanced at the end of gilded batons.