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| | May 1st |
 | | May was their favourite month in the year, not only because it was the time at which all nature seemed to spring into new life, but because a host of superstitions, dating from remote antiquity, were attached to it, and had given rise to many popular festivals and observances. |
 | | It may be imagined with what enthusiasm the French people attended these lively meetings, where the gay sons of the South repeated their glowing praises of love, beauty, and knightly worth, in the soft numbers of the langue d'oc. |
 | | It may not be uninteresting that, in 1694, 'les Jeux Floraux' were continued by order of the Grand Monarque, when forty members (being the same number as that of the Academie Francaise) were elected into an academy for the purpose of having the fetes conducted with more splendour and regularity. |
| www.thebookofdays.com /months/may/1.htm (6840 words) |
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