Immediately the devil and his
angels darted from the crowd, seized the body and fled away with it,
hotly pursued by the whole multitude, yelling, screaming, and
cheering. Naturally the fiends were overtaken and dispersed; and the
sham corpse, rescued from their clutches, was laid in a grave that
had been made ready for its reception. Thus the Carnival of 1877 at
Lerida died and was buried.
A ceremony of the same sort is observed in Provence on Ash
Wednesday. An effigy called Caramantran, whimsically attired, is
drawn in a chariot or borne on a litter, accompanied by the populace
in grotesque costumes, who carry gourds full of wine and drain them
with all the marks, real or affected, of intoxication. At the head
of the procession are some men disguised as judges and barristers,
and a tall gaunt personage who masquerades as Lent; behind them
follow young people mounted on miserable hacks and attired as
mourners who pretend to bewail the fate that is in store for
Caramantran. In the principal square the procession halts, the
tribunal is constituted, and Caramantran placed at the bar.
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