ABSTRACT
National festivals have been set up, but I would not speak here of their celebration. Is there any sight more pathetic than a municipal body decked in its sashes of office and accompanied by four or five village urchins coarsely intoning around a dead [liberty] tree a few couplets which usually have nothing to do with the ceremony in question, before returning home in a similar procession? Yet this is what happens in three quarters of France. This way of celebrating festivals is an insult to the nation; to say the least it is manifestly contrary to the intentions of legislators.
