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Hoisted on the
shoulders of a sturdy fellow, who pretended to stagger under the
burden, this popular personification of the Carnival promenaded the
streets for the last time in a manner the reverse of triumphal.
Preceded by a drummer and accompanied by a jeering rabble, among
whom the urchins and all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town
mustered in great force, the figure was carried about by the
flickering light of torches to the discordant din of shovels and
tongs, pots and pans, horns and kettles, mingled with hootings,
groans, and hisses. From time to time the procession halted, and a
champion of morality accused the broken-down old sinner of all the
excesses he had committed and for which he was now about to be
burned alive. The culprit, having nothing to urge in his own
defence, was thrown on a heap of straw, a torch was put to it, and a
great blaze shot up, to the delight of the children who frisked
round it screaming out some old popular verses about the death of
the Carnival. Sometimes the effigy was rolled down the slope of a
hill before being burnt.


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