(j^oc< 
 
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PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 BEING A SERIES OF SKETCHES 
 WRITTEN AND DRAWN BY 
 
 JOSEPH RENNELL 
 
 AND 
 
 ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1892 
 

 Copyright, 1891, 1892, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 
 • • •• • • 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
TO 
 
 HARRIET WATERS PRESTON 
 WHO WAS THE FIRST TO TURN OUR ATTENTION, AS 
 WELL AS THAT OF ALL OTHER ENGLISH-SPEAKING 
 PEOPLE, TO THE COUNTRY OF MIREIO, WE OFFER OUR 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF PROVENCE 
 
 845857 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 PAGE 
 17 
 
 II 
 
 GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 
 
 47 
 
 III 
 
 LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 
 
 65 
 
IV 
 
 THE FERRADE 89 
 
 A PAINTERS' PARADISE 105 
 
 VI 
 
 THE WATER TOURNAMENT 139 
 
 VII 
 
 THE MARIES' STORY 167 
 
VIII 
 
 THE MARIES' FEAST 
 
 PAGE 
 175 
 
 IX 
 
 LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 
 
 95 
 
 /r^f! 
 
 -*Mk, 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 • * • » • t 
 
 _ •»• • • 
 
 
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 Our Own Glad Kingdom of Provence. 
 
 WHEN I first read "Mireio," many years 
 ago, in Miss Preston's translation, I 
 thought it but a midsummer day-dream of 
 the Provencal poet. But when together we 
 
 went to Provence, J and I, the life of its 
 
 people seemed no less an idyl ; and every- 
 where, in town and country, on hills of Baux 
 or desolate Crau plain, as in the fair, large 
 city of Aries, — Aries le Blanc, — we found 
 Mistral's poem. 
 
 From Aries to Vence, 
 From Vanensolo even to Marseilles, 
 
 we were always in Mistral's world. 
 
 We saw there much of earlier ages: "the 
 antiquities," as Mireio called them when her 
 shepherd-lover wooed her — as every Pro- 
 
18 PLAY ,IN- PROVENCE 
 
 verical speaks of them to-day — memories of 
 the old Provence where temples and amphi- 
 theaters arose in strength and beauty while 
 the greater part of Gaul was still barbaric ; 
 Avignon's papal palace, " knowing no rival," 
 whither came Nerto to save the Pope from 
 the heretic, herself from the devil, where all 
 western Christianity was once at stake ; 
 Baux, and the " rock where lie its ancient 
 ruins low," once sweet with viol and flute 
 of troubadours, whose names in Esterelles 
 mouth were sweeter music to Calendal. But 
 are not these too in Mistral ? 
 
 In the Provencal to-day, in his play and 
 work, the past still lives. He is Greek and 
 Roman in his beauty and his joyousness. 
 The ancient arena now is the background 
 for the modern bull-fight, the medieval forti- 
 fied church, the goal of the modern pilgrim- 
 age. It is for the tournament, born of the 
 middle-age, that the wide lake divides the 
 olive-gardens; for the Bacchanalia of the fer- 
 rade that the plain stretches a vast level 
 to sea and sky ; and not a narrow, awning- 
 shaded street, not a blinding white road be- 
 tween sycamores but was designed for the 
 long line of the farandole, that classic dance 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 19 
 
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 first led by Greeks about the altars of their 
 gods, and then by Christians through Mar- 
 seilles streets to the greater glory of Saint 
 Lazarus. And because of the sports in the 
 Roman arena, because of the orgy in the 
 
 REMAINS OF A ROMAN THEATER, ARLES. 
 
 Plains of Meyran, because of the tilting in 
 the Etang de Berre, the past is more real, 
 while the spell of the present grows stronger 
 as we remember the Provence of King Rene 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 21 
 
 4 m v#r 
 
22 
 
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 and the troubadours, the Provincia of Rome 
 and her legions. 
 
 But in nothing so much as in their gaiety 
 are the people true to Mistral, Mistral true to 
 them. He could not, even when he sang the 
 
 AN AWNING-SHADED STREET 
 
 tragic love of his Provencal maid, suppress 
 the light laugh, which, la-bas, goes with every 
 sentiment the most tender, the most passion- 
 ate. The spirit of his country, — dme de Pro- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 23 
 
 A PROVENCAL ROAD. 
 
 vence, — which he invokes, is joyous and proud 
 and gay, and is heard in die noise of the 
 Rhone and its wild wind. Every Frenchman 
 wants all the pleasure the world can give. 
 But the Provencal takes it with that gladness 
 he inherits from remote Greek ancestors 
 whose beauty survives in the Arlesienne and 
 the Martigau. He is gay as his sunshine. 
 
 I do not mean that he is shiftless and lazy 
 and irresponsibly happy, like the negro or the 
 gipsy. He works hard. He has his bad sea- 
 sons. Luck at times goes against him, and 
 
24 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 he has seen days of distress and disaster. 
 But in his toiling and in his poverty he 
 laughs, as did the little Fleurance of the old 
 Ballad in her joy. The vintager may be tired, 
 but he comes home in the twilight dancing 
 with vine-leaves on his brow ; all night may 
 the fisherman watch his nets, but in the morn- 
 ing, as he steers his boat into the harbor, he 
 has a laugh for the women on shore. To the 
 field with the laborers go the tambourinaires 
 for the "pleasant reaping." And at Hallow- 
 mas, do not 
 
 ... all the girls come flocking in from Baux 
 And, singing, heap with olives green and dun 
 The sheets and sacks, and call it only fun ? 
 
 Theirs is the true philosophy of life, though 
 they do not know they are philosophers. And 
 if they are gay at all seasons, at holiday - 
 time their gaiety — their pleasure for plea- 
 sure's sake — is without restraint. They enter 
 into their amusements with a zest no other 
 men can rival, and they are not ashamed to 
 be seen enjoying themselves. All alike, young 
 and old, rich and poor, join in the sport. I 
 remember, the morning of the first day of the 
 great fete at Aries, I sat for a minute on a 
 
INTRODUCTION 25 
 
 bench in the Lice by the side of an old Arle- 
 sienne, a Greek in the noble beauty of her 
 face and figure, a Quakeress in the primness 
 of her dress. She was a peasant from the 
 near country, and she had an empty basket 
 on her arm and others at her feet. I asked 
 her if she would stay for the "Grand Arrival 
 of the Bulls." She could scarce understand 
 me, so little was her French; when she did 
 she shook her head indignantly. " Faut tra- 
 vailler!" she said; "faut travailler!" But 
 she was the one exception to the rule — 
 the mummy at the feast. Age or marriage 
 to the Provencal is no legitimate barrier to 
 pleasure. I have looked on at dances of 
 Roumanian peasants in which only the youths 
 and maidens took part, since men and women 
 but little older, as married people, had no 
 right to play. In Provence I have seen a 
 gray- haired grandmother lead the farandole. 
 I know that the Italians love their Carnival, 
 the English their Epsom and Henley picnics; 
 but the fun becomes frenzy with the Italian, 
 business with the English, where it contin- 
 ues graceful gaiety with the Provencal. The 
 countryman of Tartarin can eat and drink 
 with the bravest Englishman in the land, but 
 
26 
 
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INTRODUCTION 27 
 
 he never feasts with brutal seriousness. After 
 his coup de vin he dances; what does the 
 Englishman after his ? 
 
 Life is a galejado — a jest, a pleasantry — 
 in Provence. The people there know that 
 it is no small thing to enjoy the sun, to live 
 light in the spring. This it is which makes 
 them so different from all other men to-day; 
 this it was which most delighted us, coming 
 from a world where life is sad and serious. 
 
 No one can stay in Provence without feel- 
 ing the gaiety that gives new beauty to the 
 simple outdoor existence of a race at once 
 vigorous and childlike, that breaks out spon- 
 taneously in modern Provencal literature. 
 They tried to be very serious, those young 
 men who banded themselves together under 
 the standard of Roumanille and, one solemn 
 day at Fontsegugne, formed the Felibrige. 
 The Midi was once more to go forth and 
 conquer France; the simple speech of the 
 shepherds and gardiens of lone La Crau was 
 to become the language of the world ; the 
 French Academy would long be dead when 
 Provencal poetry and prose, ever young, 
 would remember it with pity. They were 
 as certain of the importance of their calling 
 
28 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 as the London Socialist or Ibsenite, though 
 they possessed qualifications rarer in the 
 self-appointed missionary — ability and good 
 work. No novel with a purpose was ever 
 more weighted than they thought their light- 
 est poem or tale. In humor many may have 
 been lacking. But for all that, the laugh 
 rings through their work, for it was steeped 
 in the colors of the human life they knew 
 and loved. In Roumanille's sweet singing 
 the sound of girlish laughter and the breath of 
 spring mingled with tears. With eyes half sad, 
 half smiling, Anselme looked upon the Prov- 
 ence he adored. Mistral's tragedy of "Vin- 
 cen and Mireio" and his tale of "Calendar 
 were excuses to unroll, as in a panorama, 
 pictures of the summer feasts and merry 
 tasks of his beloved land. And Daudet, was 
 he not too a Felibre in his day ? When they 
 were niost earnest, in the first years before 
 schism or strife had disturbed the Church, 
 they went gaily about their work. Daudet 
 has told, once and for all, of the meetings in 
 Maillane, Mistral's village; in the Aliscamps 
 at Aries, where, to the chorus of crickets and 
 the shrieking of engines, Aubanel read poem 
 or drama; in Les Baux, through whose 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 29 
 
 strange broken streets they wandered sing- 
 ing their songs ; in Avignon, or in Tile de la 
 Barthelasse, under the shadow of the papal 
 palace. One feels as if one too had been in 
 
 THE ALISCAMPS, ARLES. 
 
 the rooms of Mathieu at Chateau-neuf-des- 
 Papes for the chariot-race in July, drinking 
 the famous golden wine of the Popes and 
 listening to the verses of Mistral ; or at those 
 ferrades where peasants applauded the work 
 
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 of Roumanille and 
 Aubanel and joined 
 in the hymns to the 
 Sun, — Grand Soleil 
 de la Provence, — 
 and then, the Feli- 
 bres leading, danced 
 endless farandoles. 
 Their gospel was 
 preached to the 
 sound of music and 
 laughter ; their re- 
 ligion was one of 
 feasting, not fasting; 
 their sermons smelled 
 sweet of ail and wine. 
 This was why they 
 made their converts 
 when Saint-Rene 
 Taillandier helped 
 them to become the 
 fashion in Paris. It 
 was because in the 
 verse and prose of 
 the Provencal poets 
 there was something of the fragrance of the 
 thyme-scented hills and olive-grown valleys 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 3' 
 
32 
 
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 of their country, something of the freshness 
 of the harvest and the music of the vintage, 
 
 that it seemed like 
 a whiff of pure air 
 after the heavy- 
 laden atmosphere 
 breathed in the 
 "Fleurs du Mai" 
 of Baudelaire or 
 the "Comedie Hu- 
 maine" of Balzac. 
 Even men in lands of more sober creeds 
 were quick to respond to their charm. Miss 
 
 ROMAN REMAINS AT SAINT-REMY. 
 
 ROMAN REMAINS AT SAINT-REMY. 
 
 Preston translated "Mireio," and we, in our 
 country where only now we begin to find time 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 33 
 
 for play, heard the voices of those who sing 
 at work and who know that pleasure and 
 beauty are life's best gifts. And next, Mr. 
 Henry James made his happiest "Little Tour" 
 through the Midi. And Mr. Bishop and Mr. 
 
 d^sr* 
 
 ROMAN GATEWAY AT ORANGE. (ON THE LYONS ROAD.) 
 
 Janvier both followed as gleaners in the rich 
 Provencal harvest. More and more feel the 
 charm which, as Miss Preston says, is in Pro- 
 vence, for those who will seek it, in infinite 
 measure. It is there for archaeologist and 
 architect in the Roman temples and tombs, 
 the arenas and theaters that make Nimes 
 and Aries, Orange and Saint- Remy, equal 
 in interest and only second in importance to 
 
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 Rome and Verona, to Ostia and Tivoli ; in 
 the Romanesque churches with their richly 
 sculptured portals and sunlit cloisters that 
 are the glory of Aries and Saint- Gilles. It 
 is there for the student of medievalism in 
 
 ST. TROPHIME, ARLES. 
 
 the palace of Avignon, the castles of Beau- 
 caire and Tarascon, in the walls and towers 
 of Aigues-Mortes and the fortified church of 
 Saintes-Maries. It is there for the landscape 
 painter in the beautiful gray country watered 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 35 
 
 CLOISTERS OF ST. TROPHIME, ARLES. 
 
 by the poplar-bordered Rhone and the wide 
 salt-water lakes, where fishing-boats set sail 
 at dawn and sunset, as in Venice. It is there 
 for those who take pleasure in little towns, 
 glaring and white in the hot sunshine of the 
 south, in great prairies and briny pastures, 
 where hundreds of milk-white steeds and 
 furious black cattle run wild, in the lonely 
 mas, or farm-house, with its cypress grove and 
 
 Olive orchards intermixt 
 
 With rows of vines and almond-trees betwixt. 
 
 But, above all, it is there in the people them- 
 selves — the stately women of Aries, the stal- 
 
36 
 
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 wart fishermen of Martigues — and in the life 
 they live. 
 
 And yet the country is not tourist-ridden, 
 perhaps never will be. Infinite in measure, 
 its charm, again to quote Miss Preston, is 
 subtle and fluctuating. Many will always see 
 
 THE CHATEAU, TARASCON. 
 
 desolation in its strange grayness, barbarism 
 in its churches, discomfort in its friendly little 
 inns, lack of art in its want of pictures as 
 compared to Italy, childish folly in the gaiety 
 of the people. There are others who, afraid 
 of the southern sun and never having felt the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 37 
 
 cool breath of the 
 mistral, always go 
 to Provence in the 
 winter, though it is 
 only in the long 
 summer that the 
 country can be seen 
 as it really is — only 
 after the first pale 
 bloom of the almond 
 has filled the people 
 with hope of the 
 spring, until the 
 second tinkle of 
 bells is heard in the 
 land as, through 
 dust-clouds, the 
 flocks are driven 
 homeward from 
 
 their mountain pas- 
 ture, until 
 
 The holly-berries have 
 
 turned red, 
 And winter comes, and 
 
 nights are long ! 
 
 But if Provencal 
 
 towns and waters, hills and vineyards, are 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
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 never exploited, we 
 shall be the last to 
 resent it. We can 
 lay no claim to the 
 discovery of their 
 beauty; but now, we 
 know them too well 
 to want to see the 
 whole land blighted 
 by the invasion that 
 so long has swept 
 by it to the Riviera. 
 Provence has a 
 history as pictur- 
 esque as itself, but 
 we studied it solely 
 in Roumanille and 
 Mistral and Daudet. 
 It has a language 
 too, but for that 
 we depended on 
 translations. Agri- 
 cultural and indus- 
 trial problems may 
 darken many a mas, many a vineyard and 
 olive-garden, but never did we go out of 
 our way to find them. We were quite con- 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 39 
 
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 tent to amuse ourselves. We had no mission, 
 no duty there. To collect facts would have 
 been a task, to investigate anything a trou- 
 ble. We went to Provence to play — pour 
 
 
 m ! f- i^m 
 
 ^f 2 
 
 
 A SQUARE AT NiMES. 
 
 nous rigoler. Felibres might squabble, but 
 we remembered only that their books were 
 delightful. Life was gay and beautiful in the 
 sunshine; we never sought the shadows. One 
 need not be forever earnest and solemn, for- 
 ever on the scent of evil, forever rooting out 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 
42 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 wrongs. We cared far more for what was 
 frivolous and light in a land of gladness. 
 That incomparable masterpiece, the Proven- 
 cal poster, held us spellbound in the cool 
 streets of Martigues and the sunny squares 
 of Aries and Nimes. I can honestly say that 
 not once, when we could help it, did we miss 
 a Grande Fete in town or village. For 
 
 Glad is Provence on a day like that, 
 'T is the time of jest and laughter, 
 
 with the music and the bulls and the proces- 
 sion and the farandoles. It was always " mag- 
 nificent," as Mistral calls it. 
 
 Let not the critic say there are games and 
 sports we did not see; this we know full well. 
 Not always are they to be enjoyed for the 
 mere asking. Three years we waited for the 
 ferrade, and then was I not forced to let 
 
 J go alone to the Plains of Meyran ? It 
 
 is not in every town, nor on every river or 
 lake, that men meet for the tilting. But best 
 of all the people love the joute and the cattle- 
 branding, the bull-fight and the farandole; 
 and these, either together or apart, we saw, 
 and, in our turn, loved. And they are as 
 joyous Id-bas in prayer, so that at Saintes- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 43 
 
44 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 Maries in the piety of the pilgrims we found 
 pagan pleasure. After the priests came the 
 bulls ; after the miracles, the courses. And in 
 Martigues it seemed as if the spirit of Tar- 
 tarin had entered into the painters, though 
 several came from Paris. They worked hard, 
 the tricolorists. Did not one canvas painted 
 on Martigau waters, of the Maries landing 
 from their boat, a rosy flight of flamingos 
 across the hot blue sky, receive high honors 
 at the Salon ? and though that may prove 
 nothing, this picture was really good. But 
 their work, as we watched it, was another 
 galejado, part of the play in Provence. 
 Sometimes I think that the fierce mistral 
 and the fiercer sunshine must go to the head, 
 not only of the Provencal, but even of the 
 stranger from the cold north, if he but stay 
 long enough. Certainly, if he be wise, he 
 will do as we did, and, when in Provence, 
 play with the rest. 
 
 E. R. P. 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 
 
II 
 
 But, when the fete-days came, farewell the swath, 
 
 And welcome revels underneath the trees, 
 
 And orgies in the vaulted hoste tries, 
 
 A ?id bull-baitings and never-ending dances/ 
 
 SEVEN O CLOCK I 
 SALVOS OF ARTILLERY 
 
 THIS was the first announcement on the 
 program for the feast, industrial, com- 
 mercial, and agricultural, at Aries, signed by 
 M. le Maire, and printed on great posters 
 that we had seen for the last few weeks 
 on the walls, not only of that town, but of all 
 Provence. 
 
 Now the morning of the feast had come. 
 We awoke to the banging, we dressed to the 
 
48 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 banging, we drank our coffee to the same 
 music. In the South half the fun of the holi- 
 day is the noise made to celebrate it. 
 
 EIGHT O CLOCK : 
 SERENADE OF THE TAMBOURINES 
 
 From a distance first, but drawing nearer 
 and nearer, we heard the strangest music we 
 had ever listened to. Shrill flute-like notes 
 gave the tune, a dull drumming beat the ac- 
 companiment. It was not in the least like a 
 fife-and-drum corps ; it was not in the least 
 like anything else. The musicians reached our 
 hotel shortly after the hour. They were eight 
 or ten in number. Each carried, suspended 
 on his left arm, a long, antiquated-looking 
 drum, — it was not really a tambourine at 
 all, — and with the left hand he held to his 
 mouth a little three-fingered flute, upon 
 which he blew, while with the right he beat 
 his drum. They were the most famous tam- 
 bourinaires left in Provence : one was from 
 Barbantane, another from Bolbonne, a third 
 from Fontvieille — from Salon, from Maillane, 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 49 
 
 from all around Mistral's country they came. 
 But, unlike Daudet's Valrnajour, these men 
 were gray-haired and bent with age. Not 
 one could have been under sixty-five. A 
 crowd marched at their heels. At the first 
 sound of their music people rushed to their 
 doors and waited. All the morning they 
 kept up their concert. For, pour battre un 
 air — dit-on — Us demandent un sou; mats 
 bien cinq pour se taire (To play a tune, it is 
 said, they ask a sou ; but to leave off, five). 
 
 
 Wherever we walked we heard the old- 
 fashioned airs shrilly piped. In the narrow 
 streets small children joined hands and 
 danced to the piping. In front of St. Tro- 
 phime, and on the Lice, the wide, shady 
 boulevard, market-women were driving hard, 
 noisy bargains over their fruit, vegetables, 
 and poultry, and traveling showmen had set 
 up their gilded vans. But as the music 
 
5o 
 
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GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 51 
 
 passed, everybody stopped to look up and 
 listen. You could see that the old men felt 
 their importance and enjoyed their success ; 
 they held themselves proudly, despite their 
 bent backs. And when there was a minute's 
 interval, like a great singer with a cold, they 
 made their excuses: "One does n't really 
 know what the tambourines are on a damp 
 morning like this " — for the sky was over- 
 cast. "If the sun were shining or the mis- 
 tral blowing, then we could play! Allez!" 
 
 nine o clock: 
 
 GRAND REGATTA AND NAUTICAL GAMES 
 
 The three races of the regatta were rowed 
 on the fast-flowing Rhone. The racing-boats 
 started from far up above Aries and came 
 down with the tide ; the river did the hardest 
 part of the work, the steersmen almost all the 
 rest. The nautical games were in a large ba- 
 sin of the canal. Men walked a pole over the 
 water, climbed races up the masts of a big 
 black boat, and swam matches with ducks, 
 their prizes when caught. Even the dogs 
 
52 
 
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 joined in, and splashed and barked in hot 
 pursuit. But the dogs of Aries always take 
 part in the amusements of the people. I have 
 seen them run in a cycle-race on the boule- 
 vards, and bait bulls in the old amphitheater 
 
 "W" 1 ' 
 
 NAUTICAL GAMES. 
 
 with the bravest amateur in town. It was all 
 great fun, but greater was still to follow. 
 
 At twelve o'clock we had breakfast, and for 
 an hour or two afterward, coffee. 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 53 
 
 four o'clock: 
 grand arrival of the bulls 
 
 This was the event of the day. Usually 
 the bulls for the Sunday's bull-fight are 
 brought into the town from the Camargue in 
 a closed van, and scarcely any one knows 
 when they arrive. But at rare intervals they 
 are driven by their Camarguan keepers 
 through the streets to the stables in the 
 amphitheater. In most parts of the civilized 
 world all precaution is taken to keep wild 
 cattle out of the public thoroughfares ; in 
 Provence, to send them tearing through the 
 towns is the treat of treats reserved for holi- 
 days. The route they were now to follow 
 had been officially announced, with M. le 
 maire's signature to the proclamation. The 
 greater part of it, of course, lay along the 
 boulevards. The whole place was barricaded 
 to prevent their escape down any cross-street, 
 and everywhere shutters were drawn in lower 
 windows, and doors were closed, and shops 
 were shut, in case they did, by chance, get 
 loose. Business was suspended. 
 
 By three o'clock, the" entire town of more 
 than 20,000 people had turned out to meet 
 
54 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 them. At the cafes on the Lice there was not 
 a vacant table. Gay parties were at every 
 window and in every pretty hanging-garden. 
 The paths opposite were thronged, and the 
 market was over. To greet the bulls the 
 
 THE FARANDOLE. 
 
 stately, handsome women of Aries had put on 
 their finest costumes, their long gold watch- 
 chains hanging over the Quaker-like shawls 
 and soft fichus, the pretty Arlesian cross at 
 their throat, a tiny square of rich old lace in- 
 closed in the velvet ribbon of their head- 
 dress. They walked arm-in-arm on the wide 
 road, conscious that they were, as a sight, 
 equal to any other part of the day's show. 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 
 
 5S 
 
 Boys already were climbing into the trees, 
 in a delicious tremor of fear and expectation. 
 
 And the tambourinaires were out again. 
 They marched straight to the public gar- 
 dens. They were playing the farandole. 
 
 *® f^jgf * * 
 
 ^fe 
 
 tefe?g3fc£3feail& 
 
 m 
 
 ^=g E lil|y||g^g=^ 
 
 ■■Jlfm. 
 
 fefe 
 
 -~*m m .^.Coda. . m . ^.-fim 
 
 
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56 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 And was it really because the clouds had 
 now cleared away, and the sun was shining, 
 or because they had just come from a good 
 breakfast, and had had their coup de vin, that 
 they played it with a fire and spirit we had 
 not noticed in the morning? On the boule- 
 vards the women nodded their classic heads 
 and swayed in time as they walked. In the 
 garden, at one end, children went tripping 
 over the grass. The gaiety spread ; it was 
 hard to stand still. 
 
 Presently a man, a young Arlesienne in 
 blue, an old wrinkled woman, her head done 
 up in a handkerchief, danced out hand-in- 
 hand from the crowd and down the gravel 
 walk. 
 
 " La farandole ! La farandole ! " the peo- 
 ple shouted on every side. 
 
 The dancers had not taken many steps 
 before a dozen men and women had joined 
 them, and then as many more. In a long 
 line, slowly at first, with arms swinging, they 
 started off. As the last passed us our hands 
 were caught, and we were dragged along. 
 We did not know a step, but what matter? 
 No one else seemed to, either. Swinging 
 their arms, they all jumped in the air, sang, 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 57 
 
 and laughed, and, in the long line that kept 
 getting longer, ran faster, and faster, and 
 faster. But suddenly there was a cry of 
 " Te ! les taureaux ! " and the dancers, hot 
 and breathless, rushed to the garden rail- 
 ings. Out on the Lice people were fleeing 
 in every direction, springing across the lit- 
 tle ditch by the roadside, jumping up on the 
 high marble benches. 
 
 At the far end of the boulevards rose a 
 cloud of white dust. The next minute eight 
 black bulls thundered past on a dead gal- 
 lop, the foam streaming from their mouths, 
 guarded on each side by men, each one of 
 whom carried a long trident, and was mounted 
 on a white horse of the Camargue. After 
 them came at full tilt men and boys and 
 even women. From the gardens the crowd 
 turned and made a short cut for the amphi- 
 theater. From every street people were run- 
 ning toward it, laughing, shouting, pushing, 
 panting. All Aries was racing for one more 
 look at the bulls. 
 
 We reached the front of the main entrance 
 just in time to see the black beasts galloping 
 up a narrow street, one or two a little in ad- 
 vance, and the white horses, their riders sit- 
 
5* 
 
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 ting firm in the saddle, the long tridents in 
 their hands. They were at the top of the 
 street. The only way now open for them led 
 
 
 RACING FOR ONE MORE LOOK AT THE BULLS. 
 
 into the stables. Suddenly the barrier fell. 
 Eight bulls were at large in the streets of 
 Aries. 
 
 Everybody left. I did not wait to see any- 
 thing more. But when, once safe inside the 
 amphitheater, I looked out again, the win- 
 dows and balconies near were still crowded, 
 and there were groups on many housetops ; 
 but no one was on the street. 
 
 Gradually the women came back to the 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 
 
 59 
 
60 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 doors, lifting up the green curtains and peep- 
 ing out, while they kept the children well be- 
 hind them. Men walked boldly about. Then 
 at last we started cautiously for the hotel. 
 Wild rumors were abroad. " One bull has 
 gone into the Cafe du Forum. He jumped 
 through the glass of the front door. The 
 waiters and the patron ran. He knocked 
 down the tables; he went out through the 
 back door." "Two are in the Place de la 
 Republique. They have got into the Hotel 
 de Ville, and are mounting toward the man 
 of bronze. The clerks have flown." "They 
 are coming here now ! Les tatireaux ! les 
 taureaux!" Then followed precipitate flight. 
 
 But the bulls were seen no more that 
 night. They had gone back to the Camar- 
 gue. Eight others, fresh and fit for combat, 
 were brought in the covered van to take 
 their places. 
 
 Preposterous as it may seem to let bulls 
 and a regiment of cowboys loose in a town 
 like Aries, — a flourishing city long before 
 the Christian era, — there was a barbaric 
 picturesqueness about the Grand Arrival of 
 the Bulls not to be found in the better- 
 regulated spectacles of more serious people. 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 
 
 THE TAMBOURINAIRES IN THE TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION. 
 
 NINE O CLOCK I 
 
 GRAND ILLUMINATION, TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION 
 
 There were lanterns in the Place du Fo- 
 rum, in the Place de la Republique, and along 
 the Lice. There were lanterns on long poles 
 borne by men and boys marching with the 
 tambourinaires, who still blew their little 
 flutes and beat their long, light drums, as 
 if they had not been blowing and beating 
 and marching ever since early morning. In 
 a blaze of light they passed through the 
 dark streets into the brilliant boulevards. 
 Great lamps flared in front of the tents and 
 
62 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 showmen's booths, where loud steam-organs 
 screeched, and pretty Arlesiennes bought 
 tickets to see Venus, queen of love, the 
 wild animals, the serpent-charmer, or any of 
 the other wonders whose portraits, stuck up 
 outside, had always their group of gaping 
 admirers. There were crowds at the cafes, 
 crowds walking on the wide road, crowds 
 sitting on the chairs which industrious 
 women in fichus and ribbons were busy 
 hiring out. 
 
 TEN O CLOCK : 
 THE PEOPLE'S BALL 
 
 The ball-room was an inclosed space under 
 the trees, with four gay arches of many-col- 
 ored lamps and a loud brass-band. The 
 pretty women in their pretty dress, and 
 their less-attractive partners, danced far into 
 the warm summer night, dancing not the 
 farandole, but waltzes and quadrille-like 
 figures. 
 
 And this is the way they keep a feast-day 
 in Aries. In the land of " Provencal song and 
 sunburnt mirth" they need no Walter Besant 
 
GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 
 
 63 
 
 to teach them how to enjoy themselves. Nor 
 is there any use for philanthropic millionaires 
 to provide a few easily spared francs. The 
 city pays all. 
 
 
 ■&j 
 
 THE PEOPLE'S BALL. 
 
 Viva la joia ! 
 Fidon la trisiessa ! 
 
 they still sing, as in the days when Tristram 
 Shandy danced it across the broad plain of 
 Languedoc. E. R. P. 
 
LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 
 
Ill 
 
 La etaient proposes des prix pour tous les jeux — qui 
 tiennent gaie, a/er/e, et vigoureuse noire Provence. 
 
 POOH!" said the Publisher, who had 
 seen it; " it is nothing at all. They 
 just turn the bull loose in the arena. Then 
 they turn the populace loose. First the bull 
 chases the populace, then the populace chases 
 the bull. It 's nothing much. Nobody gets 
 hurt." 
 
 "Oh, eet vill be no grand t'ings ; ze com- 
 mon people, ze paysuns, le — le — le — ze — ze 
 — ze — ze peuple run after ze bull," said the 
 landlady's daughter in the English as she 
 spoke it. 
 
 Now when I hear that anything belongs 
 
 only to the people, I know that it is always 
 
 65 
 
66 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 worth looking up and nearly always worth 
 seeing. The walls of Aries were placarded 
 with great red posters proclaiming that never, 
 never before had the historic walls of the 
 arena seen such beautiful bulls ; never, never 
 had the fair Arlesiennes and the brave Arle- 
 siens heard such horrid bellowings, grasped 
 the unequal cocarde, or red rosette, struggled 
 with the fierce beasts, and won the mag- 
 nificent prize and the applause of the people. 
 
 Regard, noble Arlesiens ! The five pure-blooded Spanish 
 bulls and one cow ! 500 francs of prizes of cocardes await 
 you, and of the utmost honesty of the administration does 
 not all the world know the renown ? Descend then into 
 the glorious arena stained with the blood of Christian mar- 
 tyrs, renowned through all the ages, and to-day the home 
 of the courses of your beautiful Provence ! Struggle with 
 the fierce bull of Spain ! Win the prize of 500 francs, the 
 approbation of your fellow- citizens, and the smile of fair 
 ladies! (Signed) The Direction. 
 
 Wait for the small bills ! 
 
 I could scarcely wait. I consulted Dau- 
 det, Miss Preston, " Les Courses aux Tau- 
 reaux," Mistral, the daily papers, and at last 
 I found a book, " Une Course," devoted to 
 the subject. 
 
 What did they say ? 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 67 
 
 Daudet ? Nothing much, outside of "Numa 
 Roumestan." Miss Preston? " There was a 
 giddy little sham bull-fight going on in the 
 place, but we did not stay to see it." " Les 
 Courses aux Taureaux ? " It was a bald 
 description of a bull-fight, transported to 
 Paris and held in the Hippodrome, eminently 
 proper and therefore characterless. Mistral ? 
 For a wonder, he does not, so far as I know, 
 describe it. It is true Mr. Henry James has 
 done so, but I had not then seen his book. All 
 facts are unreliable when you want infor- 
 mation. "Une Course," of which I believe 
 I was the first person to buy a copy, and 
 hope I may be the last, was an account of 
 a Spanish bull-fight and the three years it 
 took a certain individual to see it, and all 
 told in the most stupid manner. 
 
 But now came the small bills. 
 
 Descend, descend, brave Arlesiens ! But parents must 
 guard their infants; on no account must the little ones 
 strive against the pure bloods of Spain. Nevertheless, the 
 direction does not hold itself accountable for the acci- 
 dents. And it is most expressively forbidden to insult 
 the bulls, or to throw small sticks and stones at them. 
 Especially important: it is absolutely forbidden to attack 
 the bulls with the big pins. But, gentlemen, all this is 
 free — a free fight in effect. But all the same, while re- 
 
68 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 membering the terrible horns, think of the value of the 
 prize, unheard of until to-day, bestowed by a generous 
 direction to excite your zeal and audacity. Come, then, 
 ladies and gentlemen, after you have witnessed the grand 
 procession through the streets of your beautiful city, 
 remembering 500 francs in prizes. 
 
 Gentlemen, one franc; ladies, 50 centimes; soldiers and 
 children, 30 centimes. 
 
 This was Friday night. Saturday noon, in 
 the middle of this beautiful placard, appeared 
 a small, white, and therefore official, bill. 
 
 Arrested. Owing to the fact that the direction is de- 
 termined, contrary to the desires of the mayor, to intro- 
 duce, for the benefit of the city, the pure bloods of 
 
 Spain into Aries, therefore Mr. Jack in Office, 
 
 the mayor, prohibits, and the fight is interdicted. 
 
 "Aha! they make the war among them- 
 selves," said the people. 
 
 " Zey have me veil told zey refuse, I t'ink, 
 to gif of ze place free to ze mayor, and he vill 
 have to stop eet," said the landlady's daugh- 
 ter. " No, I do not t'ink eet vill go on." 
 
 This was serious. To be in Provence and 
 not to see a bull-fight ! But the walls were 
 still placarded with notices that in another 
 week there would be one at Nimes. At 
 
LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 69 
 
 Aries it did not come off, but the people 
 were indifferent. They really did seem to 
 think it no great thing. 
 
 The following Sunday I went over to 
 Nimes. Although it had been clear for more 
 than a month, when I started it was dark and 
 threatening. Passing through Beaucaire, I 
 had a glimpse of a fight in progress, and I 
 might have stopped and assisted opposite the 
 town of Tartarin; but I wanted to see one in 
 a real Roman amphitheater. By the time the 
 train drew up at Nimes it was pouring, and I 
 went very sadly to the arena, only to find a 
 notice that the fight had been postponed. 
 Two Sundays gone, and the summer going ! 
 
 Clear all the week, vintage in full swing, 
 scenes like pictures all over the country, 
 fights announced for Saint- Remy, Aigues- 
 Mortes, Tarascon, but nothing in the arena; 
 Sunday, however, pouring rain, and useless 
 to think of going anywhere. 
 
 On Monday, fights were announced for the 
 following Sunday in Aries and Nimes, and in 
 all the country round; Sunday morning it was 
 raining in torrents ; Sunday noon, drizzling ; 
 Sunday afternoon there were gleams of sun- 
 shine, interspersed with showers. But four 
 
70 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 weeks without a bull-fight — that was too 
 much for both the people and the direction, 
 and there was no sign of postponement. I 
 went to a cafe opposite the arena at twelve. 
 The gates were to open at one. At one 
 it was still drizzling. At half-past it had 
 stopped, and the direction looked out of its 
 box-office. At a quarter of two it de- 
 spatched a very brazen band in a covered 
 wagon to parade the town. When, at half- 
 past two, — the fight had been announced for 
 three, — one gate opened, a small boy and I 
 rushed to secure tickets, and we entered over 
 the stones worn into grooves by Roman 
 senators, American tourists, and Provencal 
 lovers of bull-fights. When we emerged 
 where Caesar may have stood, and the arena 
 yawned vacant before us, there was a mo- 
 mentary gleam of sunlight between two huge 
 rain-clouds. 
 
 But the arena was not long vacant. An 
 Englishman and his wife, whom I had seen at 
 the hotels, entered and, looking down at a 
 stage where there is a cafe chant ant on the 
 Sunday nights when there are no bull- fights, 
 asked me what was going on. " A bull- 
 fight ! Ah ! let 's go away before the horrid 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 71 
 
 thing commences. Do you know when it 
 begins ? Ah ! ten minutes ; we have ample 
 time to see the arena. Come, George." And 
 they skipped rapidly round the huge circle, 
 clambering over the broken seats, and when 
 the band entered they disappeared. It is 
 like this that the average tourist sees the 
 character of a country. And they were the 
 only foreigners, save the Publisher, in Aries. 
 
 Though the sun did not come out, the rain 
 held off, and the people, following the band, 
 really began to crowd in. In ten or fifteen 
 minutes the place was fairly filled. This 
 arena was built to hold 26,000 people, so of 
 course I do not mean that it was full. But 
 two or three thousand are a big crowd to- 
 day for a little town like Aries. The arena 
 was gay with the uniforms of soldiers and 
 the costumes of the Arlesiennes. 
 
 While the band has been playing, the 
 arena has been filling with the brave ama- 
 teurs. I am afraid, had Constantine been 
 able to come down from his palace in a back 
 alley, that he would have called the ama- 
 teurs — who were now taking off their shoes 
 and putting on slippers, coming out of their 
 blouses and giving their hats to friends — the 
 
72 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 ignobile vulgiis. Although there were one 
 or two very superior young men in toreador 
 hats, bright red jackets, white trousers, and 
 gorgeous Spanish leather slippers, which 
 they were kicking off all the time, running 
 about in their stocking-feet, the majority had 
 no particular costume except that of the 
 country. Despite the direction, one small 
 boy did leap into the arena. He was pur- 
 sued by the police force of Aries, caught in 
 the center, and well spanked, amidst the 
 applause of the audience. 
 
 The band stopped playing. A trumpeter 
 advanced and blew a blast, and a mighty yell 
 rose from the people. Instead of the shout 
 which might have been expected, there came 
 the howl: " Te amateurs! Aha! Maria et 
 Pierre la-bas ! Turn in the bull; go it, Arle- 
 siens ! He ! he ! for the man in the white 
 trousers! Hook it, gendarmes! Zou! it's only 
 a lamb ! He! taureau ! A lions, amateurs ! " 
 A gate opened, and into the middle of the 
 arena there almost flew a huge black bull. 
 " My God! is n't he ugly! Does n't he look 
 peart ! " the audience shouted. 
 
 He saw the amateurs ; they saw him ; they 
 really flew. If you want to see one hundred 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 73 
 
 men vault a six-foot fence at the same mo- 
 ment, go to Aries. Full tilt he circled round 
 the whole arena, the brave amateurs tumbling 
 back away from him as he passed, waving 
 handkerchiefs at him ; some, braver, sitting 
 atop of the six-foot wooden fence which runs 
 just inside the old Roman stone barrier, 
 leaving a passage between. The bull stop- 
 ped in the center of the arena, bellowing and 
 snorting, kicking the sand about with his feet, 
 and tossing his head. He was very mad, and 
 apparently did not know what he was about. 
 But he is now getting his head again. The 
 braver amateurs cautiously crawl over the 
 fence as far as possible from him, and as di- 
 rectly at his back as they can ; but he keeps 
 wheeling round and round. One gentleman 
 with an umbrella comes in, but at a glance 
 from the bull he drops his umbrella and falls 
 headlong over the barrier. Two or three 
 men, however, have climbed over from dif- 
 ferent corners, and the bull does not know 
 which one to make for first. He tosses his 
 head, shaking the little red rosette, fastened 
 by wires between his horns, which is worth 
 fifty francs to him who can pull it off. But 
 it must be taken while the bull is running, 
 
 7 
 
74 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 and not only is it securely fastened, but the 
 bull has two enormous horns with which to 
 defend it, and the men have not even big 
 pins. 
 
 In a minute one of the light, active young 
 fellows, who has kicked off his slippers, starts 
 
 
 
 ^ # 
 
 CLEARING THE RING. 
 
 running toward the bull from behind. But 
 the bull sees him before he has gone twenty 
 yards, wheels around, and makes straight for 
 him with his head down. At the same mo- 
 ment two or three other men run toward 
 the bull from different directions, yelling with 
 all their might, and again he pauses for a 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 
 
 75 
 
 A TRY FOR THE COCARDE. 
 
 moment, but then, almost immediately, goes 
 directly for one in particular. The men all 
 rush across in front of him like boys playing 
 cross-tag ; the man he is after swerves a 
 little to one side, and, as the bull lowers his 
 head to toss him, 
 
 stops dead, puts ^^^^R' : 9i 
 
 his hand rapid- 
 ly down with a 
 short backward 
 movement, and 
 snatches at the 
 rosette, no big- 
 ger than a half- 
 penny, while the bull, carried by his mo- 
 mentum, goes by him for a few yards. He 
 turns at once, and, as the man has on a 
 red jacket, makes straight for him. The man 
 leaves for the nearest barrier, which is be- 
 tween five and six feet high, and over it with 
 one hand he lightly vaults ; and the bull, 
 seeing that he cannot stop himself without 
 breaking his horns against it, goes over it, 
 too. This same afternoon I saw three bulls 
 take the barrier like horses. The minute 
 the bull lands in the passage, the amateurs 
 take to the arena, leaving their hats, shoes, 
 
76 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 coats, or any other loose possessions, and 
 with these the bull amuses himself, scatter- 
 ing them among the audience, who yell with 
 delight, while he tears madly round until he 
 comes to a gate, which is opened for him, into 
 the arena. At the same moment the ama- 
 teurs all vault back into the passage. If the 
 gate is not opened in time, the bull, as I saw 
 him, jumps back again. 
 
 "lis sont sauvages, ces c hoses -la," says the 
 Parisian. 
 
 " Vous avez raison, Mosseu" replies the 
 Provencal. 
 
 By this time the bull and the people have 
 been chasing each other about for some fifteen 
 minutes. No one is the worse for it, though 
 all are a little tired. The bull does not try to 
 jump any more. He has got his head, and 
 he knows what he is about, and is too well 
 trained to try to knock down a thick plank- 
 wall with his horns. Again the trumpet 
 sounds. A great shout goes up from the 
 whole amphitheater: "You could n't get it! 
 You could n't get it! Bully for the bull!" A 
 gate opens. A jingling cow-bell sounds, and 
 a merry cow comes galloping in. The cow 
 trots, in the graceful manner peculiar to that 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 
 
 77 
 
 beast, up to the bull. She lows at him. He 
 bellows, and becomes gentle as a sucking 
 dove. They calmly run round the ring, and 
 then walk out side by side, while the people 
 applaud. The first fight is over. 
 
 The bulls are all kept in the old wild-beast 
 cages. Another has been decorated with the 
 
 U^i,^ 
 
 COME ON, TAUREAU. 
 
78 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 cocarde, this time worth one hundred francs — 
 no small prize to a soldier or a peasant. He 
 has been led through a series of cages, one 
 beyond the other, and each a little larger and 
 a little wider than himself. On each side of 
 these cages, which have no tops and are con- 
 nected by sliding doors, sit two men armed 
 with ten-foot tridents having very blunt prongs 
 at the end. These, as they talk about what 
 they ate for dinner last night, or the prospects 
 of the vintage, or any of the other topics about 
 which the French or the Italian peasant is 
 forever babbling, they calmly drop into the 
 bull's back. Although the prongs are blunt, 
 and do not run into him or in any way 
 injure him, they come down with sufficient 
 force to make him savage, and he resents 
 this treatment by jumping and kicking and 
 bellowing. When he has been sufficiently 
 maddened in the first box, the door is pulled 
 aside, and he pushes forward just six feet. 
 By the time the last door of the series of 
 boxes is opened and he reaches the arena, al- 
 though he is not hurt, he is perfectly furious. 
 With a wild bellow, his head down, he blind- 
 ly makes for the amateurs. They scatter, all 
 but one poor man who, paralyzed with fear, 
 
LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 79 
 
 stands shaking alone in the middle of the 
 arena. He trembles and seems ready to 
 drop. A shriek rises from the people. The 
 bull strikes him, tossing him into the air, 
 and he descends a shower of old newspapers 
 and brightly colored rags, while the stick 
 which held the scarecrow together rattles 
 against the bull's horns. 
 
 Mad ? Don't mention it ! He only gives up 
 those rags when he sees two amateurs who 
 have almost snatched his cocarde. They start 
 to cross each other, there is a crash of collid- 
 ing heads, and over they tumble in the dust. 
 The bull, with a bellow of triumph, dances 
 and comes down, digging his horns into the 
 dirt, and just removing the greater part of one 
 gentleman's breeches. The audience shout 
 with glee and disappointment. The bull turns 
 a somersault. The three squirm round on the 
 ground together. The men get up, and the 
 rate at which they leave the arena is remark- 
 able. For the rest of the fifteen minutes the 
 bull is literally monarch of all he surveys, and 
 no one comes near him. Handkerchiefs, hats, 
 and blouses are waved to him from over the 
 barrier, but he takes no notice, and the people 
 do not think it worth their while to encourage 
 
80 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 him. They know that a bull that has been 
 trained and kept in the best condition simply 
 for goring people is not to be trifled with. 
 When the trumpet again sounds, and the old 
 cow again enters, the bull departs, almost 
 bowing right and left, for he is conscious that 
 he deserves the "Bravo, taureau ! Bravo, 
 jRosau/" — for he is known by his name — 
 which comes to him from every side. 
 
 As another enters, the band and the audi- 
 ence are just in the middle of the chorus of 
 the Boulanger March, and as the glory of the 
 brave General resounds and rolls round the 
 arena, the bull, who is evidently of the same 
 mind as Clemenceau, endeavors to get at that 
 band, which is some twenty feet above his 
 head, with two barriers between. A man 
 all in white, except for a fisherman's red cap, 
 comes dancing like a jumping-jack out into 
 the middle of the arena. This is too much 
 for any bull. The man leaves, but the bull 
 is coming too fast for the man to vault the 
 barrier, and he nimbly jumps up on the 
 stage, five feet above the ground, which sur- 
 rounds the boxes. On this stage stands the 
 mayor of Aries talking to the direction. There 
 are also the sons-prcfet, much too superior to 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 81 
 
 talk to any one; the brigadier of gendarmes, 
 in chapeau and epaulets and sword; a choice 
 collection of the gentlemen of Aries ; an 
 American illustrator; and the two men with 
 tridents. With one thrust the bull's head 
 and horns go clear through the flimsy pro- 
 scenium boards in front of the stage ; with 
 a bound he lands on top of it. But before he 
 is fairly landed the stage is empty. The sous- 
 prefet flies into the box from which the bull 
 was liberated ; the mayor, brigadier, and the 
 direction disappear with little grace but much 
 speed over the barrier at the back ; the men 
 with tridents drop them and make for the 
 arena. I have not much idea how I got there, 
 but I found myself at the other end of the am- 
 phitheater in time to see the bull demolish- 
 ing two or three scenic towns. He looked 
 around, saw a Roman triumphal arch, proved 
 to his own satisfaction that it was made only 
 of pasteboard, and then slowly and lumber- 
 ingly jumped down in disgust, bellowed a few 
 times, asking any one to come on who wished 
 to, and, as no one answered the challenge, 
 proceeded to make a light lunch off some hay 
 which had fallen from somewhere. This he 
 found so much more attractive than fighting 
 
82 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 that he refused to do anything else, and had 
 to be led away by his attendant cow. 
 
 In ordinary accounts of bull-fights you hear 
 of the sickening sight of disemboweled horses, 
 
 AFTER THE FIGHT. 
 
 and bleeding men, and butchered bulls. This 
 went on with ever-changing fun, shouts, and 
 laughter, but no one was either hurt or got 
 the cocardes. Whoever thinks it is merely a 
 joke to go down into one of these enormous 
 arenas and snatch the tiny rosette from be- 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 83 
 
 tween the horns of a beast who has been 
 trained all his life to keep him from getting 
 it, will find that he has a large piece of work 
 cut out for him. For fun the Provencal bull- 
 fight beats a pantomime. For danger and ex- 
 pertness it is far ahead of anything I ever 
 saw. As it goes on every Sunday in the 
 summer-time all over Provence, Frenchmen 
 regard it as too common an affair to be 
 worth description. Foreigners, never going 
 there at the proper season, — the summer and 
 autumn, — never, or scarcely ever, see it. And 
 even down in La Camargue, on the banks of 
 the Rhone, in little towns, all of which save 
 Aigues-Mortes are unknown, the courses, like 
 base-ball matches, are held every fete-fay. 
 They are the sport of the people, and have 
 much more character in the small towns. 
 
 I went to several of these, and, though I 
 know that foreigners have attended them, I 
 never saw one present. The bulls come 
 into the towns in a drove, — for they are 
 perfectly quiet so long as they are kept to- 
 gether, — guarded by two or three of the fine 
 herdsmen of La Camargue, wrapped in their 
 large cloaks, and carrying tridents. The 
 peasants who have come to the fete in their 
 
8 4 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 enormous country carts form these into a 
 ring, side by side, filling up the spaces be- 
 tween the wheels 
 with hurdles, old 
 planks, or any- 
 thing that comes 
 handy. They put 
 two or three rows 
 of chairs on top, 
 and, behind these, 
 with piles of wine- 
 casks topped with 
 chairs they make 
 an amphitheater, 
 which is soon 
 crowded with peo- 
 ple. Everything 
 is perfectly free, 
 and the authori- 
 ties offer one 
 or two hundred 
 francs in prizes, 
 which, however, 
 I never saw any 
 one take. The 
 bulls are as fierce 
 as those at Aries, 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 
 
 »5 
 
86 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 but the people are much more active than the 
 Arlesiens, and the ring is much smaller. In- 
 stead of over a safety-barrier, the men have 
 to jump into the carts, which have no sides 
 and are almost breast-high; and a clean jump 
 must be made, because a clumsy climb with 
 the assistance of a pair of sharp horns would 
 not be very pleasant. 
 
 The principal delight of the young peasants 
 is to entice the bull in the direction of a party 
 of pretty girls, and to spring among them, 
 upsetting chairs, girls, and themselves in a 
 laughing, rolling heap at the bottom of the 
 cart, apparently to their own great delight, 
 and certainly to that of all the rest of the 
 ring. Peaches, grapes, and new wine circu- 
 late all round ; I never knew any one to be 
 hurt, and the whole place is filled with the 
 smell of wine from the wine-presses with 
 which the streets of all the villages are lined. 
 
 At the end of the course all the bulls are 
 let loose ; a curious fact about these beasts 
 being that, while one bull by himself is a 
 most savage animal, if two or three are put 
 together they become as quiet as cows, and 
 make a break for the open country, followed 
 by the population of the village, shouting and 
 
LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 
 
 &7 
 
 screaming. After them come their keepers 
 loaded down with huge baskets of grapes and 
 new figs that the people have given them. 
 
 
 A RUN FOR SHELTER. 
 
 In the evening the whole population ad- 
 journs to the place : the town band plays in 
 the center ; the heroes, over their sugar and 
 water, discuss their own bravery ; the harvest 
 moon of Provence hangs high in the sky ; 
 the scent of new wine is over everything; 
 the song of the mosquito grows louder 
 and louder, and before this untiring foe the 
 Provencal at last beats a retreat. 
 
 j. p. 
 
THE FERRADE 
 
IV 
 
 On a great brandi?ig-day befell this thing : 
 To aid the mighty herd in mustering, 
 Li Santo, Aigo Morto, Albaron, 
 And Faraman a hundred horsemen strong 
 Had sent into the desert. 
 
 " T)UT you must come back for the ferrade" 
 JL/ said the little Lieutenant of Zouaves as 
 we bade him good-by one August day in 
 Aries, where we had descended for a moment 
 on our way to Martigues. " Oh, you must 
 see it, and Madame also. It will be splendid, 
 magnificent, immense! Me? I have been here 
 five years and have seen only one — there has 
 been only one other in that time. You will 
 go? Very good. You don't know what a 
 ferrade is ? But, mon cher, it is the most 
 beautiful thing of Provence. In the morning 
 
 8 9 
 
9o PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 they go to the Plains of Meyran. Then they 
 chase the bull, and they brand him. One 
 bull ? Mon Dieu, no ! Forty, or a hundred. 
 Then all the world has a grand lunch. Then, 
 after one has had one's drop of wine, all the 
 world dances the farandole. Then one chases 
 the bull some more, and then one reenters 
 one's self. Oh, ques beou / " 
 
 Well, on the first of October we came back 
 for it. We waited a week, and it rained, and 
 then Madame had to go home. But finally, 
 about two weeks later, one perfect Sunday 
 morning, the lieutenant in civil, and the sous- 
 prefet in a top hat, and I in no condition to 
 be seen in such company, in a gorgeous turn- 
 out, crossed Trincataio Bridge and made our 
 way along the road that leads to Meyran. In 
 front of us and behind us was a solid mass 
 of " footers," country carts, diligences, wander- 
 ing horse-cars, bicycles, omnibuses, and every 
 conceivable sort of conveyance, all advancing, 
 silhouetted in a glory of dust. The whole 
 road seemed to be going with them. Far 
 ahead, when the mistral blew the dust away, 
 we could see flags waving over a grand stand, 
 and as the people turned out of the highroad 
 on to the plains they were divided right and 
 
THE FERRADE 91 
 
 left by a squad of gendarmes, and sent down 
 to join one or the other of two lengthening 
 files of vehicles, which, as soon as the horses 
 were taken out, were placed together, end to 
 end, forming a complete barrier. 
 
 Of course swells like myself, the sous- 
 prefet, and the officers of the garrison were 
 
 ARRIVING ON THE GROUND. 
 
 allowed to do very much as we wished, and 
 we sat proudly in our carriage, quite con- 
 scious of our superiority and of the fact that 
 we had paid fifty francs apiece for a day's 
 spree. 
 
 After having paraded nearly all the way 
 round the grounds, we drew up at the grand 
 stand, from which the whole arrangement of 
 the ferrade was plain. The inclosure formed 
 by the carriages was a parallelogram, proba- 
 bly half a mile long by about three hundred 
 yards wide. At both ends tall masts with 
 
9 2 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 flags were stuck up some yards apart like a 
 foot-ball goal. It was between these that the 
 bulls were to be chased by the horsemen, 
 overturned, and branded. Once a bull had 
 passed the lower goal he could be run after 
 by any one, but here the guardians would 
 never follow. Behind one of the goals was a 
 
 COW-BOYS OF THE CAMARGUE. 
 
 big square pen, or corral {toril they call it), 
 the top of which was decorated -with a frieze 
 of excited Provencaux, who were amusing 
 themselves and the bulls by means of canes, 
 goads, and tridents, and apparently with very 
 good success, if one might judge from the 
 crashes that came from inside. 
 
 Li Santo, Aigo Morto, Albaron, 
 
 And Faraman a hundred horsemen strong 
 
 Had sent ; 
 
THE FERRADE 93 
 
 and on their well-fed, beautiful, long-maned, 
 long-tailed white horses they posed them- 
 selves, "on their long goads leaning," talking 
 of I have not the faintest idea what, for I 
 cannot, and I never knew a Frenchman out 
 of Provence who could, make head or tail 
 of Provencal. Or with tridents carried like 
 lances they statuesquely rode about, " des 
 vrais Buffaler Beels" as the sous-prefet 
 put it. 
 
 I endeavored, to the best of my ability, to 
 explain the difference between a cow-boy and 
 the Hon. W. F. Cody, but I do not know 
 whether I succeeded. 
 
 Although the whole Camargue is probably 
 not so large as some of the great western 
 ranches, the life on it and the herdsmen are 
 just as picturesque, and more pictorial in 
 a certain way. Like the Arlesiennes, they 
 know their value in the landscape, and they 
 are always posing. Their gray soft hats, 
 black velvet coats and waistcoats are now 
 taken off and tightly rolled up behind the 
 saddle. For a fete like to-day's all wear 
 boiled shirts and white linen or corduroy 
 trousers, but around their waists, or rather 
 from their armpits down to their hips, a red 
 
94 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 or a blue sash is wound. Put a hundred 
 men like this on white horses in a glitter- 
 ing plain and the effect is not bad. In fact, 
 I doubt if the West could equal it. Their 
 stirrups are steel-barred cages, their sad- 
 
 £^j#y^j*fc frJh*ir rr 
 
 '*X£&**.*i 
 
 LETTING LOOSE THE BULL. 
 
 dies have a back to them, and their har- 
 ness is all tied on; there is hardly a buckle 
 about it. On both sides of the horse there 
 hangs down a mass of ropes and strings, 
 which give rather a disorderly effect. 
 
 Tara-ta ! 
 Tara-ta ! 
 Tara-ta-ta! 
 
 "Aha! they begin!" And the sous-prefet, 
 and some more officers who had come up, car- 
 ried me off with them to the tribune on the 
 
THE FERRADE 95 
 
 grand stand. With the mayor in his sash, 
 and the heads of the different administrative 
 departments of Aries, we must have looked 
 very imposing. At any rate, the people ap- 
 preciated us, and applauded loudly, and we 
 bowed condescendingly. 
 
 Tara-ta! 
 Tara-ta ! 
 Tara-ta-ta! 
 
 The doors of the toril open. We see, for 
 it is too far off to hear, a great excitement in 
 the human frieze, and presently a young bull 
 comes out. He starts on a run at once, passes 
 between the goals, and, as he does so, the 
 guardians, who have gone back and formed 
 a line on each side of the pen, come after 
 him, although he has gotten nearly a hun- 
 dred yards' start. He tears away right down 
 the center of the ground, followed by the 
 whole troop. They gain rapidly. They lean 
 over their horses' necks, their tridents at rest, 
 and, just as one man is about to give him 
 a push on the flank with his trident which 
 will upset him, the bull swerves, the horse- 
 man, who has distanced the others, recovers 
 
9 6 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 r^ 
 
 himself with difficulty, 
 the bull darts between 
 the two goals, and the 
 crowd on foot rush af- 
 ter him ; but the horse- 
 men are not allowed 
 to follow him farther, 
 and they let him go. 
 They walk slowly back 
 to the starting-place, 
 surrounded by their 
 friends, the younger 
 fellows here and there 
 taking up behind them 
 a pretty girl. By the 
 time they have got- 
 ten back to the tori I 
 there is a wild com- 
 motion at the other 
 end of the inclosure. 
 A long line of men 
 and boys is unwinding 
 itself, and a ta?nbouri- 
 naire is playing the 
 farandole ; they hold 
 a rope which has been 
 put around the bull's 
 
THE FERRADE 
 
 97 
 
 X=K.- 
 
 THE CHASE OF THE BULL. 
 
 neck, for they have 
 thrown and branded 
 him. Now he wears 
 a wreath of grape- 
 leaves, and a young 
 fellow, also crowned 
 with vine-leaves, sits 
 
 proudly astride him like a young Bacchus, 
 while others keep the bull straight by means 
 of his tail. It is thus that the first bull of 
 the day is made to dance the farando/e. The 
 whole affair, save for the costumes, is classic; 
 and about it, too, is much of the old Roman 
 cruelty. The people plagued the bull unmer- 
 cifully, and he would be savage enough were 
 he not played out. 
 
 "Tell them to let him go," said the sous- 
 prefet to a gendarme, and they did at once. 
 
 BETWEEN THE COURSES. 
 
9 8 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 Tara-ta ! 
 Tara-ta ! 
 Tara-ta-ta ! 
 
 THE CHASE OF THE GENDARME. 
 
 Now the same race began again. A gen- 
 darme who had been telling some people 
 
 to get off the 
 
 Afe#£ W S^iP^fe. ground had for - 
 
 >Si " gotten to get 
 
 out of the way 
 himself, and the 
 moment the bull 
 saw another big black object dancing around 
 on the plain he made for it. The prevalent 
 idea is that a bull's gallop is not very rapid ; 
 but even the little white horses could scarcely 
 catch him when he was given a hundred 
 yards' start. When the big black charger of 
 the solitary gendarme woke up to the fact 
 that the bull was almost upon him he lay 
 back his ears and ran. There was no dodg- 
 ing with him, as there would have been with 
 the little white horses. The bull overhauled 
 him, stride upon stride. It was all over in a 
 few seconds. There was a thud, a shriek from 
 the people, the black horse turned a somer- 
 sault, the gendarme flew as if he had been 
 
THE FERRADE 
 
 99 
 
 shot ; then he was carried away, and the 
 horse was dragged off the ground. It was 
 exciting and realistic, but not pleasant. Only 
 
 THE FARANDOLE. 
 
 two or three incidents of this kind happened 
 during the morning, but they were quite 
 enough. One man was caught in the middle 
 of the plain, and, 
 
 " Sham dead ! " went up a cry of agony. 
 
ioo PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 Another time, however, 
 
 . . . The beast his victim lifted high 
 On cruel horns and savage head inclined, 
 And flung him six and forty feet behind. 
 
 It was " Mireio" realized. 
 
 One detail, perhaps, Mistral never saw. 
 Not all the bulls went out at once between 
 the goals and escaped, even though they were 
 not overturned and branded ; but they tore up 
 and down the plain until they were upset. 
 One, more clever than the rest, went between 
 the wagon-wheels at the side ; but finding 
 three horses in his way, he lifted them out on 
 his horns, and vanished into the Camargue. 
 
 But even Provencaux get hungry, and in 
 October it is very hot at noon. Another 
 bugle sounded, and the play stopped, and 
 two or three hours were consumed in the 
 serious business of dining. All had not quite 
 finished their coup de vin when from in front 
 of the grand stand the music was heard. 
 
 " La farandole ! La far a ndole / ' ' 
 
 Up from the tables they jumped at once, 
 catching one another's hands as they rose. 
 Little lines of men and women, boys and 
 girls, danced out on the plain from the rows 
 
THE FERRADE 101 
 
 of wagons, and longer ones from the pine- 
 groves where they had been lunching. They 
 came dancing and running toward one an- 
 other. And then, with a change in the tune, 
 a long line started straight across the plain, 
 a line of probably two thousand, swells and 
 peasants, officers and cow-boys, whole fami- 
 lies ; in fact, in ten minutes a third of the 
 fifteen thousand people present , must have 
 joined it. The old tambourinaires played 
 faster. The head of the line, now hundreds $f 
 yards long, had come back again. It wound 
 in and out in circles. It went faster and fas- 
 ter. It swung round and round like a great 
 "crack-the-whip." Then, with a wild scream 
 from the flutes, a roll from the drums, and a 
 great cheer, it stopped. 
 
 That is the way one " makes the feast" in 
 Provence. 
 
 More farandoles, more bulls, more faran- 
 doles. Long twilight is coming on. The 
 bulls, branded or not, are scattered all over 
 the Camargue; the tambourinaires are ex- 
 hausted. The people are as gay as ever. In 
 a whirlwind of dust, with galloping horses, 
 every one returns to Aries. 
 
 And yet this was not all. Every street in 
 
102 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 the twilight was lined with Arlesiennes sit- 
 ting in rows upon the sidewalk; and just as 
 we came into the town a band of vintagers, 
 garlanded and happy, each with vine-leaves 
 on his brow and a few sous in his pocket, 
 danced over Trincataio Bridge. 
 
 " Do they know they are so picturesque ? " 
 I asked the sous-prefet. 
 
 " Why do they wear their costume?" was 
 his answer. 
 
 And 'as, white with dust, we passed St. 
 Trophime, two red-booked pilgrims slowly 
 uttered, " Now, ain't that handsome ! " 
 
 You visit a country ; you see it, or you 
 
 don't. 
 
 J. P. 
 
 THE RETURN TO ARLES. 
 
IT IS AS GOOD AS VENICE. 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 
 
When Peace descends upon the troubled ocean, 
 
 And he his wrath forgets, 
 Flock from Marti gues the boats with wing-like motion, 
 
 The fishes fill their nets. 
 
 ONE burning hot day in August we left 
 the limited express at Aries to take 
 the slowest of slow trains. It carried us in a 
 gentle, leisurely fashion across the wide plain 
 of La Crau and between the dark cypress 
 avenues which line the embankment, stop- 
 ping every few minutes, at one station for half 
 an hour for a cargo of grapes, at another for 
 three-quarters to let a fast train pass. 
 
 But we did not mind. We had now fairly 
 begun the voyage of discovery which we had 
 been planning for a year or more. We were 
 
 !°5 
 
106 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 on our way to discover the Etang de Berre 
 and Martigues, the chief city on its banks, but 
 one absolutely unknown to fame, apparently 
 to the guide-book, and even to Mistral save 
 as a peg on which to hang two beautiful lines. 
 And as for the Etang de Berre, probably a 
 thousand people go by it every day on the 
 express between Marseilles and Lyons, but 
 who ever looks at it, except, perhaps, to won- 
 der vaguely what this great stretch of water 
 is that follows the railroad almost from Mar- 
 seilles well on to Aries ? From our carriage 
 window we watched its olive-clad shores and 
 its beautiful islands ; we saw the towns upon 
 its banks, perched up, as in medieval pic- 
 tures, on high hilltops, or nestling low down 
 on the very water's edge. And at last we 
 came to Pas de Lanciers, where we once 
 more had to change cars. 
 
 Again we set out, at a still more leisurely 
 pace, through endless olive orchards. We 
 stopped oftener. The stations degenerated 
 into mere sheds, and at each women took 
 the mail, collected the tickets, smashed the 
 trunks ; was this, then, a land of women's 
 rights? And all the time we were talking 
 of the little, lovely town, like another Venice, 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 
 
 107 
 
 which we were about to claim as our discov- 
 ery, for already, one summer, J had been 
 
 there to spy it out and had seen its loveliness. 
 Just before we started we had read in " The 
 Century's" "Topics of the Time" that there 
 was no place left in the world to be discov- 
 
 CHURCH AT MARTIGUES. 
 
 ered. But that was true geographically, not 
 pictorially ; Martigues might be found on the 
 map, but not in paint or in print; and we 
 were in high spirits at the prospect. 
 
 It was dusk when the train finally crawled 
 into Martigues. We were worried about our 
 baggage, uncertain whether, in so primitive a 
 
io8 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 109 
 
 place, any one could be found to carry our 
 heavy trunk and traps from the station to the 
 hotel. We tried to consult our one fellow- 
 traveler, but he could speak only an unknown 
 tongue, the Provencal, which some travelers 
 have found phonetically intelligible, but of 
 which we could hardly understand a word; 
 and Martigues seemed more out of the world 
 than ever. The train stopped ; we got out, 
 gave up our tickets, and passed through the 
 station. At once three men wearing caps 
 emblazoned with the names of hotels fell upon 
 us, and each asked if we were not going to 
 his house. Two stages and a couple of car- 
 riages were waiting in the little open square. 
 No one to carry our trunk into the town, 
 indeed! 
 
 In our surprise we stood there a minute 
 undecided. But a brisk little man with short 
 
 black beard bustled up and took J 's big 
 
 white umbrella and camp-stool out of his 
 hands. 
 
 "You must come to my hotel," he said; 
 "it is there that all the painters descend." 
 
 And he helped us into the stage, hunted up 
 our trunk, lifted it to the driver's seat, got in 
 after us, and before we realized what had hap- 
 
HO PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 pened we were being jolted over the cobbles 
 of narrow, dimly lighted streets. 
 
 " I can give you a room," he said, as we 
 were driving along. " I am the patron [the 
 proprietor]. Only yesterday six painters left 
 me. I can give you the room a monsieur 
 from Marseilles and his wife had." 
 
 Six painters ! We had planned a brilliant 
 pictorial discovery ; was it possible that we 
 were to find instead merely another pop- 
 ular painters' settlement ? The blow was 
 crushing. 
 
 There was no doubt about it when we 
 reached the hotel, for the hall into which we 
 were ushered was strewn from end to end 
 with easels, and canvases, and all the usual 
 studio litter, leaving but small space for the 
 black brass-bound boxes of the commercial 
 traveler. Madame, who at once bade us wel- 
 come, told us our room was not quite ready, 
 but we could make our toilet for dinner here 
 in the corner. And as we washed our hands 
 at the big brass fountain or sink that stands 
 in the hall of every French commercial hotel, 
 in came a man with pointed beard, soft felt 
 hat on the back of his head, a white umbrella 
 under one arm, a sketch-book sticking out of 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 
 
 in 
 
 his pocket. Six painters had gone, but how 
 many were left in Martigues? 
 
 We found that out very quickly the next 
 morning when, after our coffee, we started 
 
 YOUNG SAILORS. 
 
 to explore the town. In the walk of the 4th 
 of September, in the long shady Place on 
 which the hotel stands, the first person we 
 
112 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 met was a tall, good-looking man, in striped 
 red and black jersey and huge straw hat, 
 walking with military step, and at his heels 
 followed a small boy in one of the funny little 
 aprons all French boys wear, almost bent 
 double under a load of canvas and camp- 
 stool. And when we wandered to the canals 
 which, as at Venice, run through the town, 
 and when we crossed the bridges, we saw at 
 every turn an easel, and behind it a man in 
 white Stanley cap or helmet painting the 
 very houses and water and boats which we 
 had come to discover. And after our midday 
 breakfast, when we went to the cafe next door 
 to the hotel, there at a table under the trees 
 were half a dozen helmets and Stanley caps, 
 and a huge pile of canvases and umbrellas, 
 and outside, playing leap-frog with a crowd 
 of other urchins in aprons, was the little boy 
 whom we had met earlier struggling beneath 
 his burden. The proprietor of the cafe was 
 sitting with the helmets, but he joined us 
 presently, and asked if we were painters too. 
 "We always have painters here," he said; 
 " they come even in winter. There are so 
 many motifs for them in Martigues. Mon- 
 sieur has not begun to see it yet. You must 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 113 
 
 go this afternoon to the Bordigues, where 
 every painter who comes to Martigues makes 
 a picture, or else, perhaps, to the Gacherel, 
 where all these gentlemen," waving his hand 
 to the helmets under the trees, " are at work 
 in the afternoon. Yes ; the motifs are many." 
 
 As we walked from the cafe down toward 
 
 the water, J with a sketch-block under 
 
 his arm, a little toddling child who could 
 scarcely talk lisped " pinter" as he passed, as 
 though, instead of being unknown in Mar- 
 tigues, the painter was one of the first objects 
 to its children, his name the first on their lips. 
 Before we had gone very far along the shore 
 of the gre'at lake that stretches between Mar- 
 tigues and the Mediterranean (the Etang de 
 Caronte it is called on the map), we came 
 to a little building with huge window opening 
 upon the dusty road and facing northward; 
 and in the garden beyond was something 
 white and shining. A man was superintend- 
 ing some work close by, and we asked him 
 whose house this was, for the window looked 
 mightily like a studio. 
 
 " Don't you know ? " he said in amaze- 
 ment. " It is there M. Ziem lives." 
 
 We had thought M. Ziem dead for years, 
 
114 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 and here he was 
 alive in Martigues, 
 which he had dis- 
 covered before we 
 were born. 
 
 "Here," the man 
 
 went on, " he has 
 
 painted all of his 
 
 Venices, and Con- 
 
 stantinoples, and 
 
 Cairos. Here is 
 
 | the Nile, or the 
 
 * Adriatic, or the 
 
 w Bosphorus, as he 
 
 o may wish, flowing 
 
 h past his very door. 
 
 There on the near 
 
 hillsides are the 
 
 stone - pines and 
 
 cypresses of the 
 
 south and east; on 
 
 the water beyond 
 
 lies Venice ; and 
 
 here in his garden 
 
 are the mosques 
 
 of Constantinople. 
 
 Aikzr 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 115 
 
 We went and looked closer then, and we 
 saw that the little white shining thing was a 
 toy mosque with dome and minarets, that ori- 
 ental pots and jars were scattered about in 
 the garden, and that two or three men were 
 
 A.-,. 
 
 ziem's studio. 
 
 putting up another and larger mosque, the 
 framework of its dome and minarets lying 
 with the stones and mortar below its unfin- 
 ished walls. 
 
 Still farther down the road a man breaking 
 stones by the wayside stopped to point out 
 the Gacherel, the great farm upon the lake- 
 side, with beautiful cypress grove and sunlit 
 garden, where the vines overshadowed an old 
 stone well, and there, under the cypresses, 
 were the easels and helmets in a row. 
 
 There were painters wherever we went ; 
 painters walking slowly down the blindingly 
 white road under white umbrellas ; painters 
 
u6 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 staring at the sunset from the lower hill- 
 tops ; painters under the olives ; painters in 
 the hotel dining-room. It was a town of 
 painters. Where was our discovery? Was 
 this the little city lying forgotten and un- 
 
 FISHING FROM BOATS. 
 
 sought in a watery wilderness that we were 
 to be the first to make known for the plea- 
 sure of all the world and our own great 
 glory — this southern seacoast Barbizon ? 
 
 Of course it was a disappointment. Fancy 
 if in the heart of the African forest Stanley 
 had met, not pigmies, but another Emin Relief 
 Expedition. But now that we were there we 
 might as well make the best of it. Though 
 the explorer had been in Martigues before us, 
 there was no reason why we should not enjoy 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 117 
 
 the artist's life led in this remote painters' 
 paradise — this paradise without drains or 
 sewers, but a paradise for all that. On the 
 surface there was an Arcadian simplicity in 
 the painter's daily existence that was very 
 charming. We began to talk about Murger's 
 Bohemia, and Barbizon in the days before it 
 had been exploited, and by our second morn- 
 ing we were really glad that, instead of 
 making a pictorial discovery, we had found 
 a well-established artist colony. We were 
 quite ready to be friendly. 
 
 At first we thought the artists were too. 
 After our second breakfast M. Bernard, our 
 landlord, stopped us in the hall. 
 
 " These gentlemen, the painters," he said 
 
 to J , "are eager to do all they can for a 
 
 colleague. There is one who offers you his 
 boat ; it is at your entire disposition. Among 
 brother artists it is always so ; take it when 
 and where you want. There is another who 
 wishes to fraternize with you ; he will show 
 you about Martigues ; he knows it well, and 
 Monsieur is still a stranger." 
 
 What could have been kinder ? 
 
 "Where can I see these gentlemen to 
 thank them ? " asked J . 
 
u8 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 " Oh," said M. Bernard, " be sure they will 
 give you the chance at once. One Mo?isieur 
 goes to the Cafe du Commerce, the other to 
 the Cascade. You will always find them 
 there. And there are many painters still in 
 my hotel. They, too, will wish to know and 
 to talk with Monsieur." 
 
 We were on our way to the Cascade when 
 he stopped us, and now we hurried there the 
 faster, gay and smiling, prepared to meet the 
 gentlemen, the painters, half-way. The hel- 
 mets and Stanley caps were under the same 
 tree, but they stared vacantly over our heads 
 as if they did not see us. It was not easy to 
 go up and ask, "which of you gentlemen is 
 the one who would fraternize with me ? " But 
 we sat at a near table to give him every 
 chance, and when the dog of one of the party 
 ran up we patted it and fed it with sugar, 
 though only the minute before we had seen 
 it snapping at the tail of the pet goose of 
 the cafe and at the legs of small boys in 
 the street, and should have preferred keep- 
 ing it at a respectful distance. But no fra- 
 ternal greeting had passed between us when 
 the gentlemen, the painters, buckling on 
 their knapsacks, and with wild, loud cries of 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 119 
 
 " Black! Brosse! Black! Brosse ! " for the 
 dog and the little black-aproned boy, started 
 in the hot sunshine for the Gacherel. 
 
 In the evening, after dinner, we went to the 
 Commerce. We wanted to thank the friendly 
 artist who had offered us his boat. The cafe 
 was crowded; men in fishermen's jerseys, men 
 in velveteens, men in alpaca coats, were drink- 
 ing coffee and playing dominoes. We 
 sat down at a table in strong light and j 1 j 
 waited. No one noticed us ; and here It » 
 if we were to make the first advances, ! ,' 
 we should have to begin by asking, , ' 
 
 "Which of you gentlemen are ^^ffi 
 artists ? " For at this cafe were 
 no helmets and Stanley caps, no 
 
 
 
 
 A FAVORITE MOTIVE. 
 
120 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 canvases and campstools, not so much as a 
 piece of paper or a lead-pencil. 
 
 We waited quietly all the evening, but no 
 fraternal sign was given. We waited the next 
 day, and the next, and the day after that. We 
 waited a week, two weeks. At the hotel the 
 man in the big hat occasionally wished us a 
 cold and non-committal u Bon jour" or "Bon 
 soir" ; the others never paid the least atten- 
 tion to us. On the streets and in the cafe the 
 Stanley caps and helmets persistently stared 
 over our heads. The owner of the boat mod- 
 estly refused us the chance to thank him. We 
 were left severely to ourselves. What would 
 Miirger have said to the good fellowship of 
 this modern Bohemia? 
 
 However, though we were cast upon our 
 own resources, there was much that was pleas- 
 ant to see and to be done. Martigues, though 
 it had not waited for us to discover it, was as 
 picturesque as if none but its native fishermen 
 had stepped upon its sea- washed shores. It 
 was really the Provencal Venice, which we 
 had not the satisfaction of being the first to 
 call it. For scarcely had that too aggressively 
 appropriate name occurred to us than we saw 
 it in big letters on an old stage, and next on 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 
 
 121 
 
 LOOKING DOWN THE GRANDE RUE. 
 
122 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 a cafe ; while M. Bernard was quick to ask us 
 if we did not find his town " vraiment une 
 Venise Provengale ? " Lying, as it does, just 
 between the Etang de Berre and the Etang 
 de Caronte, where their hill-girt shores draw 
 close together and almost meet, the sea-water 
 runs between its white houses and carries the 
 black boats with their graceful lateen sails to 
 its doors. Only a step from its canals you 
 wander through the silvery olive orchards 
 of Provence, or climb the sweet lavender- 
 scented hillsides, or follow a smooth, white 
 road past an old red-roofed farmhouse, or a 
 dark cypress grove, or a stone-pine standing 
 solitary, or else a thick hedge of tall, waving 
 reeds. And even while in the town, you can- 
 not help seeing the country as you never do 
 in Venice. As the fishermen drew up their 
 nets on canal-banks there would come rattling 
 by long Provencal carts, drawn by horses that 
 wear the blue wool collar and high-pointed 
 horn which makes them look like some do- 
 mestic species of unicorn. Or in the cool of 
 the summer evening, after the rest during the 
 day's heat, a shepherd, crushing a sprig of 
 lavender between his fingers as he walked, 
 would drive his goats and sheep over the 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 123 
 
 bridges, and start out for the long night's 
 browse on the salt marshes by the lake, or 
 on the sparse turf of the rocky hillsides ; or in 
 the morning, just as the white-sailed boats 
 were coming home, he would leave his flock 
 huddled together on the church steps or in 
 the little square. 
 
 But you could walk from one end of Mar- 
 tigues to the other without stumbling upon 
 a single architectural or historical monument 
 worth mention in the guide-book. It is not 
 a place for the tourist. Even if its beauty 
 alone could attract him, its unspeakable dirt 
 would quickly frighten him away. And the 
 blue waters of its canals reflect no palaces 
 and churches which a Ruskin would walk 
 a step to see ; there is no St. Mark's, no 
 Piazza, no fair Gothic house like that of 
 Desdemona. The only buildings with the 
 slightest pretense to architectural distinction 
 are the church, with the fine but florid Re- 
 naissance portal, which the architect would 
 call an example of debased rococo, and the 
 great square Hotel de Ville, massive and 
 simple as an old Florentine palace. The 
 only building with the slightest suggestion 
 of history or legend is a lonely little gray 
 
124 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 THE PORTAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 125 
 
 chapel which, from the highest hilltop near, 
 overlooks the white town and its blue lakes. 
 When we asked about it, one man thought 
 a monk lived up there, and another knew he 
 had been dead for years, and all traces of its 
 past had been lost with the keys of its sev- 
 eral doors. Martigues may have a history, 
 but we made no further effort to learn it. 
 
 All this time we saw a great deal of our 
 brother artists, as M. Bernard pleasantly 
 called them. How could we help it? Mar- 
 tigues was small ; they alone shared it with 
 the fishermen. Twice a day we sat face to 
 face with them, though at separate tables, in 
 the little hotel dining-room, which was so 
 cool and quiet during the week, so crowded 
 and noisy on Sundays, when excursionists — 
 the cockneys of Marseilles, cyclists in red 
 shirts and top-boots, peasants in their shirt- 
 sleeves, beautiful Arlesiennes in the fichu and 
 coif of Aries — descended upon Martigues to 
 eat bouillebaisse at M. Bernard's. Regularly 
 we passed the same easels on our daily walk 
 through the town, at the hour when women 
 were bravely pretending to sweep away its 
 hopeless dirt, or making their own and their 
 children's toilets on the doorsteps, or going 
 
126 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 with stone jars to the well, or marketing 
 under the sycamores in front of the Hotel de 
 Ville; while the stage from near Port de Bouc 
 came rumbling over the bridges with loud 
 blowing of bugles, followed, if it were Sun- 
 day or Thursday morning, by the street car 
 which, with its three horses, gave Martigues 
 for a few minutes quite the air of a big town. 
 As likely as not, we chanced upon a white 
 umbrella and an unopened sketch-book on 
 the drawbridge over the main canal, where 
 I loved to linger to watch the fishermen 
 unloading their nets of the huge fish that 
 looked so absurdly like pasteboard, raking 
 up the bottom of the canal for mussels, and 
 posing statuesquely with their fichouiro, as 
 they call it in their impossible Provencal, the 
 long pole, with a row of sharp iron teeth at one 
 end and a string at the other, with which they 
 spear the fish that escape the nets, bringing 
 them up bleeding and writhing. And always 
 at the Cascade, after breakfast, we found the 
 same group under the trees, in striped jerseys 
 and white Stanley caps or helmets on hot 
 days, in overalls and straw hats when a 
 light breeze freshened the air, in blue flan- 
 nel and derby hat when the mistral blew — 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 127 
 
 they were perfect little men of the weather- 
 house ! 
 
 Their arrival at the cafe was the great 
 event in our square in the interval between 
 the Sunday ball and the Thursday opera, 
 which was so comic even when it was meant 
 to be grand. The tall painter led the way, 
 Madame at his side ; at his heels two dogs, 
 and the small black-aproned boy laden with 
 his tools ; then came the short, fat gentleman, 
 the painter, all his traps on his own stout 
 shoulders, walking with his head thrown 
 back, his fat little stomach thrown out as 
 if he carried with him wherever he went the 
 consciousness of Salon medals to come and 
 Albert Wolfs dearly bought puffs ; then his 
 thin, tall, gray-haired father-in-law, his stool 
 and canvas, for variety, slung over one arm ; 
 then another manly back erect under a heavy 
 load ; and on many days there were no less 
 than six in this impressive party. But it was 
 the setting out for afternoon work that we 
 waited for with delight ; even after we had 
 drained our glasses of the last drop of coffee, 
 even after I had read every word of the four 
 serial shilling shockers published in "Le Petit 
 Provencal " and "Le Petit Marseillais." For 
 
128 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 first there would be the wild, loud shouts of 
 " Black! Brosse ! Black! Brosse!" until the 
 setter and the black apron would rush from 
 some unseen haunt back to the cafe gate ; 
 there would be the buckling on of knapsacks, 
 the lifting up of burdens, and then the brave 
 march, three, four, five, or six abreast, down 
 the wide street to the lake in all the glare 
 of two o'clock sunlight. At the foot they 
 passed out of sight in the direction of the 
 
 GOING TO THE GACHEREL. 
 
 Gacherel. Whoever chose to follow them 
 would find them there, still three, four, five, or 
 six abreast, easels set up under the shadow 
 of the cypresses, six, eight, ten, or twelve 
 eyes turned to where the white walls and red 
 roofs of Martigues rose from the blue water. 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 
 
 29 
 
 But the greatest sight of all was when a new, 
 spotless canvas, on an arrangement that looked 
 like a section of a four-posted bedstead, was 
 borne in triumph by Brosse and two assis- 
 
 ^>.._-,,,m',^^,v v ; 
 
 
 THE GACHEREL. 
 
 tants in front of the procession. Who, after 
 seeing that, would ever again say that the 
 painters life is all play ? 
 
 During our afternoon rambles we usually 
 had all to ourselves the olive orchards and 
 the lavender-scented hillsides that looked 
 seaward. But at the hour of absinthe, when, 
 
130 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 from the western ridge of hills beyond the 
 lake, cypresses and olives rose black against 
 the light, and all the bells of the town were 
 ringing out the angelus, and the swift boats 
 were sailing homeward along a flaming path 
 across the waters, then we would again meet 
 the party from the Gacherel, their backs res- 
 olutely turned to the setting sun, once more 
 on their way to the Cascade ; and we would 
 overtake the white umbrellas, now folded, 
 while their owners, sketch-books sticking out 
 of their pockets, hands behind their backs, 
 strolled slowly toward the Mediterranean, 
 gazing westward. But, often as we saw our 
 brother artists, they always passed us by on 
 the other side. 
 
 I do not know how long this would have 
 lasted if it had not been for Black, the dog 
 we had fed with sugar. His master went 
 away to near Avignon for a day or two, and 
 poor Black was left tied to the cafe gate, 
 while the goose cackled derisively just be- 
 yond his reach, and the small boys played 
 leap-frog just within his sight. His eyes fol- 
 lowed us so wistfully when we came in or 
 out, that one morning I unfastened the strap 
 and took him for a happy walk. That very 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 131 
 
 evening his master returned to Martigues. 
 
 J and I were sitting on the little bench 
 
 in front of the hotel, alone as usual, when 
 Monsieur, on his way to the Cascade, his 
 only dissipation, stopped with Madame. 
 
 " I t'ank you, Madam," he said to me in 
 excellent English, but with a charming ac- 
 cent, " for your kindness to my dog. You 
 are very good." 
 
 " Votes etes bien aimable ! '" ("You are 
 very amiable ") chimed in Madame, and we 
 were friends on the spot. 
 
 And now, as Mr. Black would say, a 
 strange thing happened. For one by one 
 all the other gentleman painters began to 
 speak to us. And, stranger still, all spoke 
 in English, just as all wore English clothes, 
 
 though it was only J in a French hat 
 
 and necktie, always talking French, — even 
 to a stray sailor who told him reproachfully, 
 "Why, I thought you was an Amurrican!" — 
 who was ever mistaken for an Englishman. 
 And strangest of all was that they under- 
 stood their own English so much better 
 than ours that when it came to a conver- 
 sation we had to fall back upon French, no 
 matter what they talked. 
 
132 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 It had been quite plain to us all along 
 that something more than the length of the 
 walk separated the gentlemen, the painters, 
 of the Cafe du Commerce, whose sketch-books 
 never left their pockets, from those of the Cas- 
 cade, whose canvases were never put away. 
 No one could have stayed in Martigues a 
 week without seeing that beneath the Ar- 
 cadian surface of its artists' life all was not 
 exactly as it should be. Sometimes we had 
 thought it must be a matter of dress — a 
 question between brand-new helmets and 
 conspicuous Jerseys on the one side, very 
 shabby ordinary hats and coats on the other 
 — which kept the two groups as wholly 
 apart as if their cafes represented the rival 
 Salons. But now that both were equally 
 cordial to us, we saw into the true state of 
 affairs quickly enough. Had we been more 
 curious, we need have asked no questions. 
 We had only to listen while they talked. 
 
 " Bah ! " said one of the Commerce one 
 evening, as we walked together past the 
 Cascade and saw the helmets over their ab- 
 sinthe — "Bah!" the tricolorists ! They al- 
 ways paint red roofs, white houses, and blue 
 sky and water. But que voulez-vous? They 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 
 
 133 
 
134 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 see nothing else. They want to see no- 
 thing else. They make the grande machine ! 
 When sea and sky are most beautiful, they 
 go to the cafe. They care not for nature. 
 But it is the way with the painters of to- 
 day. They are all blind to nature's most 
 subtle, most delicate effects. They come to 
 a place ; they wait never to learn its beau- 
 ties, to know it really. They take out their 
 canvas, and they make their picture, en 
 plein air, and think it must be fine because 
 it is painted so, with nature before them for 
 model. No good work was ever done like 
 that." 
 
 " But Claude Monet ? " we suggested. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " But did 
 ever Claude Monet set up his easel in the 
 morning at nine and paint steadily the same 
 effect until twelve, though shadows had 
 shortened and the sun risen high in the 
 heavens ? Did he think the light at three 
 the same as at five ? No ; I don't under- 
 stand the modern school. When I was in 
 Paris such masters as Rousseau, Corot, Ziem 
 were respected, not triflers like Monet. And 
 what were their methods ? They studied na- 
 ture, they communed with her, they watched 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 135 
 
 her every change, they saturated themselves 
 with her. And then, with all this know- 
 ledge, all these memories, they went into 
 the studio and composed a great picture ; 
 they were not content to make a painted 
 photograph." 
 
 We had almost reached the Gacherel by 
 this time. Far out beyond the two lights of 
 Port de Bouc the afterglow was just begin- 
 ning to fade, the dusky grays were gradually 
 creeping westward, a great rift of pale faint 
 green showed beneath a ridge of flaming 
 clouds. " Look at that ! " he cried, standing 
 still and pointing with arm extended to the 
 west, while chattering girls from the washing- 
 place, and children singing " Sur le pont 
 cT Avignon" and laborers starting homeward 
 after their day's work, and priests out for 
 their evening walk, passed down the road. 
 But no one noticed him ; he and the sunset 
 were every-day occurrences at Martigues. 
 " Look at that ! Can I bring my canvas and 
 paint here an effect which is gone in five min- 
 utes ? No ; but I come evening after even- 
 ing at this hour. I regard, I study, I learn. 
 The inspiration seizes me. I must paint. I 
 shut myself in my studio. I wrestle with 
 
136 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 aittsW X 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 137 
 
 color ! That is art ; not to cover so many 
 inches of canvas every day, to use brushes 
 for so many hours by the clock, as if I were 
 but a weaver at his loom. A lions au cafe!" 
 
 The next day at noon we were drinking 
 coffee with our friends at the Cascade. 
 
 " And your big picture ? " we asked of one. 
 
 " It marches. Two weeks more, working 
 every morning, and I shall have finished it. 
 I begin another this afternoon at the Gach- 
 erel ; I must give it all my afternoons. It 
 is my Salon picture. Every year I have 
 had my Salon pictures on the line ; every 
 year I have sold one to the state. I have 
 always had a medal wherever I have ex- 
 hibited. Albert Wolf has written about me. 
 Reproductions of my paintings you will 
 find in the Salon catalogues." 
 
 One from the Commerce sauntered by, his 
 big white umbrella up, a fan in one hand, 
 his tiny sketch-book, as usual, in his pocket. 
 
 "They never work, these men," the hel- 
 met said with a shrug; "and what can 
 they expect ? They stay in Martigues, they 
 do not come to Paris, they do nothing. 
 You never see them with paint or canvas. 
 They never work out of doors ; they are not 
 
138 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 Jin de Steele. And then they do not like it 
 when others get the good places and the 
 medals. They think no one to-day does 
 good work, no one after Corot, and Dau- 
 bigny, and their eternal M. Ziem ! They 
 abuse everybody else. They loaf and talk 
 only of themselves. Mon Dieu, it is two 
 o'clock! We must be off. Black! Brosse!" 
 
 And down the wide street marched the 
 procession of brave workmen, while over at 
 the Commerce the idlers sat for a couple of 
 hours, playing with their dogs and talking 
 about the greatness of art before the com- 
 ing of the modern artist. 
 
 We heard much of this talk. Many an 
 evening poor Desiree, carrying the soup 
 from the kitchen to the dining-room, would 
 have to force his way through the group 
 listening to an impromptu lecture on true 
 artistic methods ; many a morning a little 
 crowd assembled under the sycamores of the 
 walk for a lesson in true artistic perspective 
 without the aid of camera. And daily we 
 watched the progress of the big canvases, 
 and learned of the strifes and struggles of 
 the artist in Paris, where the spoils of the 
 art world must be intrigued for as are polit- 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 139 
 
 ical spoils at home, and where a good coat 
 and a swell studio are the artist's highest 
 recommendations, even as in London or 
 New York. 
 
 Art for art's sake was the creed held at 
 the Commerce ; art for a medal's sake at the 
 Cascade. 
 
 I was glad that we were allowed to hold 
 a neutral position, to be neither tricolorist 
 nor romanticist, but independent, like the 
 young painter who gave lessons to all the 
 pretty girls in Martigues, and the old pro- 
 fessor of drawing who sang such gay songs 
 over his wine after dinner. I liked the 
 methods of the communers with nature : to 
 spend morning and evening studying her 
 among the olives and from canal-banks, to 
 do nothing and call it work, what could be 
 pleasanter? And yet success is sweet, and 
 successful artists do not always do the worst 
 work. Was not Velasquez a courtier ? and 
 did not Titian live in a palace ? 
 
 However, if all the ways of Martigues 
 were not peace, at both cafes it was agreed 
 that the town was a real painters' paradise. 
 
 " It is as good as Venice," they would say 
 at the Commerce. "We have the boats, the 
 
Ho PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 canals, the fishermen, and the sunlight; in 
 the morning even Port de Bouc in the dis- 
 tance is as fine as the Venetian islands. And 
 yet it is so much more simple. The effects 
 at a certain hour are the same every day — 
 every day. It composes itself; it is not too 
 architectural. And it is small ; you get to 
 know it all. You must not always be study- 
 ing new motifs, new subjects, as in Venice. 
 That is why M. Ziem likes it better than all 
 the other places where he has painted." 
 
 " It is as good as Venice," they would say 
 at the Cascade, "and so much nearer for 
 us. We lose less time in coming. And peo- 
 ple who buy paintings and go to exhibitions 
 are not fatigued with looking at pictures of 
 Martigues, as they are with those of Venice. 
 Every painter has not worked here." 
 
 And they might have added that it has 
 not been exploited and ruined like the vil- 
 lage on the borders of the northern forest, 
 or the fishing-town on the Cornish coast. 
 It is not filled with aggressive studios, it 
 gives no public exhibitions, it has no old 
 men and women falling into position as the 
 artist passes, no inn parlor with picture-cov- 
 ered walls. The only sign of the painter's 
 
A PAINTERS' PARADISE 141 
 
 summer passage is an occasional unfinished 
 sketch stuck up on a shelf in a fisherman's 
 kitchen, or a smudge of paint on a bedroom 
 wall. 
 
 Those were very pleasant days, the last 
 we spent at Martigues. We were no longer 
 alone when we strolled by the canals where 
 the brown nets hung in long lines and the 
 boats lay finely grouped, and where young 
 girls in Rembrandtesque interiors and old 
 men out in the sunshine, chanting about 
 "panvre ZozepJiine" made or mended nets 
 and sails. We were no longer alone when 
 we walked toward the sunset, no longer 
 alone when we drank our midday coffee at 
 
 the Cascade, or J smoked his evening 
 
 pipe in front of the hotel. A space was 
 found for his stool at the Gacherel in the 
 afternoons; Black followed Madame and me 
 over the hills and under the pines. And we 
 had made many other friends in the town: 
 the builder of the mosque, who often con- 
 sulted us about his dome and minarets — 
 "what was the true Turkish form?" — the 
 shopkeepers, who would lean over their 
 counters and call me "Ma Bella" when they 
 asked what I wanted; the women who of- 
 
142 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 fered J a chair when he worked at their 
 
 doors; the fishermen who invited us on their 
 boats and into their kitchens. A little longer 
 and we should have been on intimate terms 
 with all Martigues, even though we could 
 not understand its language. 
 
 But the summer painting season came to 
 an end with September. One by one the 
 helmets deserted the Gacherel and the Cas- 
 cade; one by one the white umbrellas and 
 fans disappeared from the shores of the lake. 
 Gradually the studio litter was cleared from 
 the hall of our hotel. 
 
 ''These gentlemen, the painters, go now," 
 M. Bernard said, when he would have in- 
 duced us to stay, "but others soon arrive for 
 the winter. The house will be gay again." 
 
 Only over at the Commerce one or two 
 remained faithful, waiting for the coming of 
 their master, M. Ziem. 
 
 But we could not wait to see the great 
 man nor to share the winter gaiety. We 
 had had our summer in Paradise; the time 
 had come to turn our faces northward from 
 the sunshine of Martigues to the fog of 
 London. 
 
 E. R. P. 
 
A MARTIGAU MENDING NETS. 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 
 
VI 
 
 Mais tout cela it* est rien : la Joute — ouvre aux com- 
 battants line arene plus large. 
 
 IT was easy to see that it was a feast- 
 day in Saint-Chamas — "Chamas the 
 wealthy" — on the morning we arrived from 
 Martigues. Along the main street, in cool 
 shadow under the awnings of every shape 
 and color that stretched over it from house 
 to house, Japanese lanterns were strung 
 up in long lines and many festoons about 
 every cafe door ; the trash that only holi- 
 day-makers buy was displayed lavishly in 
 gaudy little booths under the arches of 
 the high aqueduct that crosses the town ; 
 a merry-go-round close by threatened at 
 any moment to fill the place with the stir- 
 ring sounds of its steam music ; while by 
 
 the water-side — for Saint-Chamas strag- 
 
 145 
 
146 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 147 
 
 gles down from its cliff-dwellings to the 
 shores of the Etang de Berre — one drum- 
 mer was drumming vigorously, and half 
 the town had gathered in the fierce ten 
 o'clock sunlight to watch, first two boys, 
 and then four men race each other in big 
 black fishing-boats heavily ballasted with 
 stones. 
 
 And there was a holiday strength in the 
 smell of absinthe that hung over the town 
 toward noon, a holiday excellence in the 
 breakfast we ate at the Croix Blanche, — 
 and, for that matter, in the price we paid 
 for it, — and a holiday leisure in the long 
 time given to coffee afterward. Gentlemen 
 in high hats and decorations, boys testing 
 yellow, red, and green syrups, and work- 
 ingmen in their Sunday best all sat in 
 pleasant good-fellowship in the deep black 
 shadows under the awnings. 
 
 While we lounged with the rest in front 
 of the principal cafe, the doors of the Hotel 
 de Ville opposite opened, and two men 
 brought out a pile of large square wooden 
 shields painted white with a red or a blue 
 bull's-eye in the center, and several heavy 
 wooden lances decorated in the same col- 
 
148 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 ors and about eight or ten feet long, with 
 three spikes at the end. All these were 
 promptly carted off in the direction of the 
 lake. 
 
 There was no need to ask what they 
 were for. We knew at once. They were 
 the arms of the combatants in the coming 
 jousts on the Etang de Berre. For it was 
 really to see the jousts, the great event of 
 the second day of the autumn feast, that 
 we had driven over to Saint- Chamas. We 
 had heard that tournaments were still held 
 on Provencal waters, though exactly what 
 they were we had not then discovered. We 
 had not as yet read " Calendal," where, in 
 the sixth canto, the description of the tilt- 
 ing is as detailed as the story of the bull- 
 baiting in " Mireio." In " Mireio " itself 
 there is no reference to the Joutes, except 
 when the little Andreloun, boasting of the 
 immensity of Rhone River, says that 
 
 Betwixt Camargue and Crau might holden be 
 Right noble jousts! 
 
 Several times that summer we had seen 
 them announced on the irresistible program 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 
 
 149 
 
 of some great festival of the Midi. But 
 hitherto we had always managed just to 
 miss them. We had come to Cette too 
 soon, to Martigues too late. And it is not 
 
 W.h 
 
 
 UNDER THE AWNINGS. 
 
 in every town by lake or water-side that 
 they are given nowadays, however it may 
 have been of old. Often the Provencal 
 himself who lives in one of the more im- 
 portant towns, in Avignon, Nimes, or Aries, 
 has not seen them; for of all the great 
 
150 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 Provencal cities, Marseilles, we were told, 
 alone still holds its tournaments, though at 
 rarer intervals as the years go on. But 
 throughout Provence the fame of the jousts 
 is great, and but few of the Provencal sports 
 are in such high favor on the Etang de 
 Berre, that great salt-water lake which is 
 far wider than the stream that flows betwixt 
 Camargue and Crau. The strong, finely 
 built fishermen of Martigues excel in the 
 tilting, and Saint-Chamas is so near that 
 there are always a few to joust on its 
 waters as on their own canals. 
 
 Three was the hour announced for the 
 tournament, and about half-past two the 
 people began trooping down to the shore 
 near the little harbor. While the men had 
 been drinking their coffee, the women had 
 been making their toilets, for they had not 
 troubled to change their working-dress for 
 the morning regatta. The jousts, though, 
 were as worthy of all their bravest finery 
 as any bull-fight. In Saint-Chamas they 
 wear, with a coquetry all their own, the 
 lovely Arlesian dress — the little Quaker- 
 like shawl and fichu, the plain skirt, and 
 the black ribbon wound about the little 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 151 
 
 square of white lace for a cap. And very 
 charming they looked, the older women in 
 black or brown or gray, the young girls in 
 pink or blue or mauve, a ribbon tied in a 
 coquettish bow just under their chins, their 
 hair waved and curled over their pretty 
 foreheads, and on their hands long Suede 
 
 ill i^+Sa 
 
 
 LEAVING THE HARBOR. 
 
 gloves of the most modern shape, just to 
 show that they knew well enough what the 
 fashions in Paris were, and that it was 
 choice alone that made them keep to one 
 of the most becoming costumes ever in- 
 vented for women. The jousting-ground, 
 or rather water, was about a mile from the 
 town, and we watched the groups of pretty 
 girls, their dresses carefully lifted above 
 stiff white petticoats,, embarking in the big 
 
152 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 black boats waiting in the harbor. And 
 other groups wandered down the hot, dusty 
 road, past the cliffs which make a back- 
 ground for the town, and in which houses 
 have been burrowed out, doors and win- 
 dows cut in the soft rock, even as they 
 may have been by Gauls of old before a 
 Greek had come to Marseilles or a Roman 
 been seen in Saint-Chamas. But never did 
 Gaul or Greek or Roman take part in a 
 gayer scene than this starting for the jousts, 
 the lake glittering in sunlight and dotted 
 with black boats, the banks brilliant with 
 color, and every one in fine holiday humor, 
 all the merrier because of the good break- 
 fast, the absinthe, and the coffee, and each 
 woman's consciousness of looking her best. 
 When we had seen the last boat-load of 
 pretty girls rowed briskly away, we hurried 
 down the white road to where the crowd 
 had collected. Far on the other side of the 
 lake was a circle of gray hills ; the black 
 fishing-craft had anchored in a long line 
 about half-way across ; and between it and 
 the shore were the two boats — the two wa- 
 ter steeds — of the knights of the tourna- 
 ment. From each boat two long beams rose 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 
 
 53 
 
 in an inclined plane 
 away out beyond the 
 stern and above the water, 
 and placed on them, at 
 their extreme end, was a 
 narrow board, on which 
 presently stepped a man 
 in shirt and breeches, 
 with a big wooden shield 
 strapped on and cover- 
 ing him in front from the 
 neck to the knees, and a 
 wooden lance in his hand. 
 There were twelve row- 
 ers and twelve oars in 
 each boat; in the stern 
 stood the steersman, his 
 hand on the tiller ; and 
 in the prow were trump- 
 eter and drummer. 
 
 At the first blast of the 
 trumpet, the first roll of 
 the drum, the two boats 
 took up their position 
 about two hundred yards 
 apart. At the second, 
 each competitor waving 
 
 ft I 
 
 1 
 
 ci , 
 
 mm ' 
 
*54 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 155 
 
 his little banner as if victory were already his, 
 the rowers dipped their oars together, pulled 
 with all their might, the steersman encourag- 
 ing them, and the drummer beating louder 
 than ever, while the two boats drew nearer 
 and nearer with ever increasing force, and 
 an expectant silence fell upon all the waiting 
 crowd. As the two bows crossed, the oars- 
 men stopped rowing in order to steady the 
 boats, which, however, by this time had got 
 
 A CRASH OF BOARDS.' 
 
 up such speed that they passed each other 
 at a tremendous rate. At the moment of 
 meeting, each of the combatants, who had 
 long since dropped their banners and lifted 
 their lances, aimed at the bull's-eye on the 
 other's shield. There was a crash of boards 
 that could be heard a mile away, and, head 
 over heels, shield and all, one man went 
 into the water, and a great shout rose from 
 
i 5 6 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 the black line of fishing-craft 
 and from the crowded banks. 
 Then in the blue lake a 
 shield was seen floating in 
 one direction, a man swim- 
 ming vigorously in the other, 
 and on the winning boat the 
 victor stood hio-h above the 
 oarsmen, his arms extended, 
 strong and athletic as a young 
 Hercules. 
 
 And now the smaller boats 
 rowed up and down and in 
 and out, and on land syrups 
 were drunk at the cafes set 
 up for the occasion, and the 
 prettiest girls, arm in arm, 
 strolled under the trees un- 
 til the next combatant had 
 buckled on his armor, and 
 the trumpet and the drum 
 once more heralded a com- 
 ing combat. At once all the 
 spectators hastened to their 
 places, and the two boats 
 rowed to the required dis- 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 
 
 157 
 
 tance. Again, at the 
 second summons, oars- 
 men pulled till bows 
 crossed ; again lance 
 clashed against shield 
 in the duel of a second; 
 and again a head and 
 a board were seen on 
 
 the surface of the water as the conqueror 
 stood on high, waving his arms in triumph. 
 All the afternoon, one after another, the 
 fishermen tested their prowess, while the 
 sun sank toward the opposite hills. There 
 
 "LANCE CLASHED AGAINST 
 SHIELD." 
 
 ^P*> 
 
 -155 V 
 
 
 THE VICTOR. 
 
 was no want of variety in the tournament, 
 though each meeting lasted only a moment 
 and only one stroke with the lance could 
 
158 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 be given in each combat. The constant 
 movement of the boats, the water dancing 
 beneath them, filled the lake with life and 
 action. Sometimes before the two boats 
 met, while rowers were pu]ling their hard- 
 est, one of the champions would suddenly 
 lose his balance and sit down on his lofty 
 
 BOTH FELL TOGETHER. 
 
 perch or drop into the water, and then it 
 would all begin again ; or else both duellists, 
 at the clash of their weapons, tumbled into 
 the water together, amid loud splashing 
 and laughter. Indeed, it seemed as if there 
 were always three or four men swimming 
 about in the lake or stepping, wet and drip- 
 ping, on the bank. And it was funny to 
 see how indifferent everybody was to the 
 vanquished in the tourney. As a rule, ab- 
 surd though they always looked when they 
 walked ashore, the water pouring off them, 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 159 
 
 in delicious contrast to the people in their 
 Sunday best, they passed unnoticed. Only 
 once I heard a pretty girl call out after a 
 stalwart young fisherman, " Has it been 
 raining where you came from?" A bed of 
 the tall Provencal reeds just below served 
 as dressing-room, and from behind it they 
 would emerge again, spruce, and neat, and 
 jaunty, with only their soaked hair and the 
 bundle of wet clothes in one hand to bear 
 witness to their late defeat and ducking. 
 
 Often one of the assailants tried to cheat. 
 They have a sad reputation for cheating, 
 the Martigaux, and must be watched closely. 
 They do not always aim fair ; if they can, 
 they hit below the board. We saw one case 
 so flagrant that the whole audience pro- 
 tested and there was a consultation of the 
 umpires. The losing man, as he tumbled, 
 turned, and, catching hold of his victorious 
 opponent, pulled him over into the water 
 after him. But nothing could be done un- 
 til his victim had been reinstated on his 
 high board and re-armed with shield and 
 lance amid ringing cheers. 
 
 It is a favorite fallacy that the French 
 are without athletics, that they have no out- 
 
160 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 door sport worthy of the name. But no- 
 where have I seen a finer game than this, 
 or one that requires greater art, and skill, 
 and strength. For it takes no little art for 
 a man to balance himself on that narrow 
 
 Ah 
 
 kfe^ 
 
 A QUESTION FOR THE UMPIRE. 
 
 ledge, no little skill to hit the enemy's tar- 
 get, no little strength to withstand the blow 
 that crashes upon his shield. I am sure 
 that the old tournament in the ring was not 
 a better test of a man's valor and daring. 
 The horses in heavy armor, carrying heav- 
 ily armed knights, could never have ap- 
 proached each other with the momentum 
 of boats pulled by twelve men ; steel lance 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 161 
 
 seldom struck steel breastplate with a 
 mightier blow than that of wooden lance 
 upon wooden shield. And the luckless 
 knight scarcely ran more serious risk than 
 the conquered fisherman who tumbles, with 
 his clumsy shield still buckled to him, into 
 the deep waters of the Etang de Berre. 
 More than once the jousts, like the tourna- 
 ments of yore, have ended with the death 
 of the conquered. A slip of the lance, and 
 its pointed prongs may strike into the 
 throat of an opponent instead of into his 
 shield, or may fall with a force that will 
 bring his tilting in this world to a close 
 for evermore. At Martigues they had told 
 us of several such fatal accidents in their 
 canals. But perhaps this very element of 
 danger only doubles the people's pleasure 
 in the jousts; for, with so many other things 
 that have remained as an inheritance from 
 their Roman ancestors, there is a certain 
 cruelty, modified, it is true, in their sports. 
 I do not believe that medieval tourna- 
 ment ever made a lovelier or more brilliant 
 pageant than these modern contests on the 
 waters of Saint-Chamas. I know that on 
 the Etang de Berre there is no flashing of 
 
162 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 steel or sheen of helmet and hauberk, no 
 waving plumes or rustling silks ; to many 
 the scant bathing costume of the comba- 
 tants might seem but a burlesque substi- 
 tute for knightly armor. But then, on the 
 other hand, shirt and breeches and wide 
 sash are not, as was the knight's steel rai- 
 ment, a clumsy disguise for men who are 
 Greek-like in virile beauty of form. No- 
 thing could be finer than the amphitheater 
 of low, gray hills, one far down to the right 
 crowned with the walls and houses of Mi- 
 ramas; nothing brighter or more glowing 
 with color than the shores and the black 
 boats in line in the center of the lake, 
 crowded with fair women in Arlesian dress. 
 It was at the hour of sunset, when all 
 were going homeward, that the picture 
 they made was loveliest to look upon. Of- 
 ten the jousts last until the afterglow has 
 faded, and they are not yet finished when 
 darkness comes to separate the combatants. 
 The rules of the jousting, as far as we could 
 learn, are simple enough. Each man tilts 
 for himself alone ; if he overthrow three com- 
 batants he becomes what is called a frere, 
 and gives up his place, for the time being, 
 
THE WATER TOURNAMENT 163 
 
 to the next man in the lists. Once he tum- 
 bles, however, his chance is over. When 
 all have met in combat, when all have fallen 
 or stood their three trials, then the freres, 
 if there be more than one, have a new in- 
 ning. The length of time the jousts last 
 depends, therefore, upon the number and 
 skill of competitors. That afternoon at 
 Saint-Chamas, again and again both fell 
 together, so that the lists were exhausted 
 more speedily than usual. And at the end 
 there was not even one frere. The sun 
 was setting behind the far hills when the 
 last two men were rowed toward each other 
 at the loud trumpet-call, and the last head 
 was seen bobbing up and down in the lake. 
 And then, in the golden light, every one 
 set out for home : on the banks a long 
 procession of men and women chattering 
 and laughing with all the pleasant noise 
 and exuberant gaiety of the Midi; on the 
 water a long procession of boats, their la- 
 teen sails raised, — for a light breeze was 
 now blowing, — and leading the way one of 
 the big black barges with the twelve row- 
 ers, the drummer drumming in the bow, 
 and high above the stern the hero of the 
 
164 play in provence: 
 
 jousting, erect and triumphant, waving a 
 flag, his statuesque form silhouetted against 
 the evening sky. 
 
 When we got back to the town the cafes 
 were already crowded, and lamps were be- 
 ing lighted for the evening ball as we drove 
 away in the starlight. 
 
 E. R. P. 
 
nr. m 
 
THE MARIES' STORY 
 
VII 
 
 For we are they men call the saints of Baux, 
 The Maries of Judcza. 
 
 r T^HE saints Mistral sings in his "Mireio" 
 JL are Mary Jacobe, Mary Salome, and 
 Mary Magdalen whose feast in May, in the 
 little village which bears their name, is the 
 greatest festival of Provence, and whose 
 legend has been told again and again by 
 Provencal poet and chronicler. They were 
 three of the large company of holy men and 
 women from Palestine, who were thrown 
 by the Jews into a boat without sails or 
 oars or food, and then set adrift upon the 
 sea. But, so tell they the tale, an angel of 
 the Lord was sent to them as pilot, and 
 the Maries and Sarah, their servant, hold- 
 ing their long robes like sails to the wind, 
 came swiftly and safely to the shores of the 
 
168 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 land which it was their mission to convert 
 to Christ. Once they disembarked upon the 
 remote edge of the wide and desolate Ca- 
 margue, they built an .altar, and Maximin, 
 one of their number, offered up the sacrifice 
 of the mass, and where the water had been 
 as salt as the sea, it now suddenly rose at 
 their feet sweet and pure from a miraculous 
 spring, a sign of the divine approval. 
 
 Then they separated, each to go his or 
 her own holy way, all save Mary Jacobe 
 and Mary Salome, who, with Sarah, stayed 
 and, building a cell near the altar, lived 
 there the rest of their days. And some- 
 times fishermen passed by that lonely coast, 
 and to them the saintly women preached the 
 true faith and won many converts to Christ. 
 Sometimes from near Aries Trophimus came 
 and administered the sacraments to his faith- 
 ful sisters in the church. And the fame of the 
 holiness of the three women went abroad, 
 and when, after they had died, they were 
 buried where they had lived, people jour- 
 neyed from far and near to visit and pray 
 at the tomb, and there many miracles were 
 worked, so that their renown grew ever 
 greater and greater. Before many years 
 
3 
 
 c ••■ f 
 
170 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 it had become a well-known place of pil- 
 grimage (indeed, one of the most ancient 
 in France), and a mighty church was built 
 over their lowly altar, and many and strange 
 were the wonders that were wrought. A 
 little town grew up about the church, and 
 nuns and monks raised their convents and 
 monasteries close by, and as Rocamadour 
 was honored in the far west of Languedoc, 
 so was the shrine of the Saintes Maries 
 beloved in Provence. 
 
 Then evil days followed. Saracens and 
 Danes laid waste the land, and if even Aries 
 and Marseilles fell before their attacks, how 
 could the remote village in the desert with- 
 stand them ? And there were pirates, too, 
 who infested Camarguan shores. And be- 
 tween them all, by the tenth century nothing- 
 was left of Saintes-Maries but the little al- 
 tar guarded by a hermit. But it fell out that 
 one day William I., Count of Provence, hunt- 
 ing in the Camargue, chanced upon the old 
 forgotten shrine, and the hermit told him of 
 its glory in the past; and the Count's heart 
 was touched, and he promised to restore it to 
 its greatness. And the church which he built 
 was strong and fortified with battlements and 
 
THE MARIES' STORY 171 
 
 a tower — you can still see it on the sands to- 
 day — and pirates were defied and peace once 
 more reigned in the sacred spot. Then again 
 pilgrims thronged to it from every part of 
 France. Houses and monasteries re-arose 
 beneath the shadow of the church. Miracles 
 were worked. And its prosperity returned, 
 as William had promised. Four centuries 
 later good King Rene found beneath the 
 church the bones of the blessed women — by 
 the sweet smell they gave forth they were 
 known to be the remains of the Maries — 
 and inclosed them in a richly adorned casket 
 which was placed in the little airy chapel 
 above the choir. It was then decreed that 
 once every year, on the 25th of May, they 
 should be lowered into the church, and 
 showed to the faithful. The relics of St. 
 Sarah were set in the crypt, where they re- 
 ceived special honor from the Gipsies, to 
 whose race she had belonged. As the cen- 
 turies passed, the fame of the shrine in- 
 creased, and there was no better loved place 
 of pilgrimage throughout the land. 
 
 And then again began the evil days. 
 From the Reign of Terror the village by 
 the sea could not escape. The church was 
 
172 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 sacked, its shrine desecrated during the Rev- 
 olution, and had not the cure concealed the 
 sacred relics, they too must have perished 
 when their casket was burned. After the 
 Revolution, when quiet was restored, a new 
 casket was made, the bones were again 
 carried to their chapel, and the annual pil- 
 grimage began with all the old fervor. 
 
 Saintes- Maries is so out-of-the-way, so 
 difficult to reach, that in this railroad age it 
 may be said to have lost its old popularity, — 
 that is, outside of the Midi. A thirty miles' 
 drive across the broad plain of the Camargue 
 and the absolute certainty of having to sleep 
 out of doors seem no light matters to the pil- 
 grim who can step from a railway-carriage into 
 a big hotel at Lourdes. As a consequence 
 Saintes- Maries, which has no other interest 
 save that which the shrine gives it, receives 
 but scanty mention in the guide-book, and to 
 the average tourist is practically unknown. 
 But throughout the south of France the de- 
 votion to the Maries has never weakened. 
 The people still flock to the May feast by 
 hundreds and thousands. And because of the 
 sincerity of the pilgrims and the absence of 
 curious lookers-on, the festival has retained a 
 
THE MARIES' STORY 173 
 
 character of which few religious ceremonies 
 nowadays can boast. However, a railway is 
 being built across the Camargue, and in a 
 few years Saintes-Maries will have lost its 
 character and have become as fashionable as 
 Lourdes. 
 
 E. R. P. 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 
 
VIII 
 
 . . . If a lizard, wolf, or horrid snake 
 Ever should wound thee with its fang, betake 
 Thyself forthwith to the most holy saints, 
 Who cure all ills and hearken all complaints. 
 
 TEN years ago I made up my mind to 
 go to Ober-Ammergau. But when 
 1890 came nobody asked me. Instead, in 
 the middle of May, I was in Aries, and 
 on the 23d on my way to Saintes-Maries, 
 for the feast Mistral sings in "Mireio." 
 
 The road to the town crosses for thirty 
 miles the Camargue, no longer a fearful 
 desert, but one of the richest parts of 
 France, a land which in the autumn reeks 
 of wine. On this May morning there 
 passed down the broad white highway an 
 endless succession of long carts, each filled 
 with sad and silent peasants or bright and 
 
176 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 jolly Arlesiens, who were singing hymns 
 as they went. Many of the people looked 
 tired and sick and worn; in some wagons 
 I saw blind men and cripples and helpless 
 paralytics. 
 
 As I jogged slowly on, I overtook wan- 
 dering monks, gipsies, the Archbishop of 
 Aix, and more and more cartloads of pil- 
 grims. Finally, as the cultivation ceased 
 and the wide salt marshes commenced, the 
 town with the battlemented walls of its 
 church came into sight, faintly outlined 
 low down against the sea, and I looked 
 to it as Mireio did on her weary journey: 
 
 . . . She sees it loom at last in distance dim, 
 She sees it grow on the horizon's rim, 
 The saints' white tower across the billowy plain, 
 Like vessel homeward bound upon the main. 
 
 Tourists who go to Saintes- Maries al- 
 ways describe it as a wretched, miserable 
 collection of little hovels. It is, on the 
 contrary, quite a flourishing fishing village, 
 with two very decent hotels, a Mairie, 
 and all the other belongings of a small 
 French country town. The hotels usually 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 177 
 
 charge about four francs a day. But on 
 the 23d, 24th, and 25th of May the land- 
 lords get a hundred francs for a room 
 alone from any one who has not brought 
 his own tent or carriage, or has not a 
 friend, and who objects to sleeping in the 
 open. 
 
 When I wandered into the church, I 
 found that it had been completely trans- 
 formed since I had last seen it. Galleries 
 were erected around the interior, the side 
 altars were boarded up, and the best places 
 on the choir steps were covered with the 
 cushions and pillows of the faithful, who in 
 this manner reserve their seats for the 
 three days' feast. A lay brother was busy 
 drawing water from the holy well, salt all 
 the year, but fresh during the fete, while 
 a number of pilgrims were either drinking 
 it or bottling it up and carrying it away. 
 Every now and then a marvelously pictur- 
 esque gipsy would mount from the lowest 
 chapel, for at Saintes- Maries 
 
 altars and chapels three 
 Built one upon the other, you may see, 
 
■ 78 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 179 
 
 and he would scratch some powder from 
 the rock on which the Maries landed, and 
 descend again to where 
 
 beneath the ground, 
 The dusky gipsies kneel, with awe profound 
 Before Saint Sarah. 
 
 From their subterranean shrine came the 
 strangest singing: 
 
 Dans un bateau sans cordage, 
 
 Au naufrage 
 On vans exposa soudain ; 
 Mais de Dieu la providence, 
 
 En Provence, 
 Vons jit tr onver un chemin. 
 
 Then, "Vivent les Saintes Maries!" they 
 shouted, and their shouts echoed through 
 the long, low barrel-vaulted church, almost 
 a tunnel, and were repeated by the crowds 
 kneeling about the choir. As strange as 
 their singing were the black-shrouded fig- 
 ures of the Romany chals, gathered toge- 
 ther from no one knew where, and now, 
 on their knees, grouped around the tomb 
 of their saint. Many and evil, one felt, 
 
i8o 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 must have been the deeds which required 
 all this devotion to be washed away. 
 
 Throughout the afternoon people kept 
 pouring into the town. Every foot of 
 space around the church was filled with 
 
 OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 
 
 booths, from the stand for the sale of 
 votive offerings managed by a priest to an 
 equally flourishing gambling establishment 
 presided over by a charming young lady. 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 
 
 181 
 
 The gipsy women who were not engaged 
 in praying sat by the door holding shells 
 for alms, just as many a wandering brother 
 
 
 THE CHURCH DOOR. 
 
 in the same place may have begged his 
 way hundreds of years before. At the 
 main door a small blind girl was stationed, 
 and for the next three days the air rang 
 with her ceaseless cry : " Messieurs-et- Mes- 
 
1 82 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 dames- n oubiiez- pas-la- panvi'e-petiie-aveuglc- 
 et-les- Saintes-Maries-ne - vous-oublieront-pas. " 
 To the saints themselves she never turned 
 for the miracle for which so many were 
 hoping, and once in a while it seemed to 
 occur to the sacristan that hers was not 
 the best example to encourage the belief of 
 the faithful, and he would come and take 
 her away. But he could never stop the 
 endless flow of her petition, and before it 
 was quite lost in the distance she would 
 make her escape and find her way back 
 again. She might have been the devil's 
 own advocate. 
 
 The cure of the town was bustling about, 
 looking after the Archbishop, greeting all 
 the arriving clergy, and selling tickets for 
 the good places in the church during the 
 next two days. But though nearly worked 
 to death, he was still smiling and amiable. 
 
 The town by evening was completely en- 
 compassed by a great camp of gipsies and 
 peasants and farmers. The sun sank into 
 the marshes, great camp-fires were lit, and 
 then the mosquito was abroad in the land. 
 
 I looked into the church again after dark. 
 It was crowded. On the raised choir, where 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 
 
 183 
 
 THE CHURCH AT NIGHT. 
 
1 84 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 the high altar usually stands and where the 
 relics were to descend on the morrow, lay 
 the sick, votive candles casting a dim light 
 
 " VIVENT LES SAINTES MARIES ! " 
 
 upon their sad, thin faces, which stared out, 
 white and ghastly, from the surrounding 
 shadows. 
 
 And, ah, what cries they lift! what vows they pay! 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 185 
 
 Those who could were chanting hymns in 
 quavering voices, their friends taking up 
 the chorus. Many lay still and silent. One 
 boy seemed too feeble to do more than 
 move a trembling, emaciated hand in time 
 to the singing, and yet, every now and 
 then, he would open wide his heavy eyes, 
 and into his death-like face would come a 
 look of longing, and, in a shrill voice that 
 rose high above all the others, he would 
 shriek, " Vivent les Saintes Maries!" It 
 was as if the grave had opened and the 
 dead spoke. All night these weary watch- 
 ers would lie there, waiting and hoping, 
 and all the next day until the descent of 
 the holy relics whose touch must surely 
 heal them. 
 
 While the faith in the saints was so strong 
 around the shrine, the faith in Boulanger 
 seemed equally great out in the open night; 
 at least his march was sung as loud and as 
 long as the hymns to the Maries — louder 
 and longer in fact, for it kept me awake 
 for hours. And so is all life divided between 
 pain and pleasure. 
 
 On the morning of the 24th, the great 
 day, there were masses and sermons and 
 
1 86 
 
 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 practising of the choir within the church ; 
 there were bargaining and gambling and 
 preaching without. In the blinding sunlight 
 a steady stream of people kept winding 
 down the single highroad into the town, 
 while far off, at the mouth of the Little 
 Rhone, steamers from Marseilles and Aries 
 and Saint-Gilles unloaded their pilgrims, 
 who, like Mireio, came wandering across 
 the salt-marshes. 
 
 By three o'clock the church was nearly 
 full ; by four it was jammed. Around each 
 
 
 PREACHING OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 187 
 
 door outside was a great crowd; inside there 
 was not an empty seat. The long ray of 
 light which streamed in through the broken 
 rose-window at the western end was mo- 
 mentarily shut out by the people who had 
 climbed even away up there. Every one 
 in nave and gallery held a lighted candle, 
 which twinkled and flickered and waved 
 with the great volume of the singing. 
 "We are in Heaven and the stars are 
 under our feet," Gounod said when, one 
 24th of May, he looked down upon the 
 same scene. In the raised choir the sick 
 still waited, their friends and a few priests 
 still prayed and chanted. " The church 
 was like a wind-swept wood " with the 
 mighty voice of their supplication. 
 
 Suddenly there was a cry of " They 
 come ! " The people around the altar fell 
 on their knees ; for from the airy chapel, 
 high above the choir, a great double ark 
 now hung suspended and then began to 
 move downward, but almost imperceptibly. 
 As slowly it came nearer, the sick and in- 
 firm were raised toward it in the arms of the 
 strong. Women fairly wrestled together, each 
 seeking to be first to lay her hand upon the 
 
1 88 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 holy relics. When it was a few feet from its 
 resting-place, a solemn procession of white- 
 robed clergy passed from the sacristy to the 
 choir, and one priest, springing upon the al- 
 tar, seized and kissed the relics. At the same 
 moment he was surrounded by the sick, 
 who, as if the longed-for miracle had been 
 already worked, pushed and struggled to 
 touch and be healed. The priest held the 
 relics, and the people, pressing closer and 
 closer, fell upon them, touching them with 
 their hands, their eyes, and even their crip- 
 pled limbs, kissing them passionately, clasp- 
 ing them with frenzy. It seemed as if the 
 priest's vestments must be torn to shreds, 
 the relics broken and scattered in a thousand 
 fragments, from the very fervor of the faith- 
 ful. But finally the last kiss was given, the 
 last petition uttered, the ark was set at rest 
 upon the altar, the sick were placed all 
 around it, and the chants rose louder and 
 sweeter than ever. Vivent les Saintes 
 Maries / 
 
 Was any one cured ? No ; not yet could 
 the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame arise 
 and go their way. But there was not a 
 single sick man or woman whose hope was 
 
THE MARIES' FEAST 189 
 
 not strong for another year. There is no 
 faith like this in Protestantism. 
 
 Again all night the sick lay there, and 
 the church was filled with ceaseless singing. 
 Hymn followed hymn, the pious gipsies in 
 the lower chapel singing one verse, the 
 people in the church above responding with 
 the next. And again all night an army of 
 pilgrims was camped around the town. 
 
 On the 25th, while the morning was still 
 young, a long procession started from the 
 church, headed by the different banners 
 given by the towns of Provence. In sol- 
 emn state the Archbishop of Aix, attended 
 by clergy and acolytes, marched through 
 the narrow streets, half in shadow, out into 
 the open sunlight to the sea-shore. And 
 next the sick and crippled came, some 
 borne on mattresses, some hobbling on 
 crutches, and others dragged along by their 
 friends. Last of all a struggling crowd of 
 gipsies carried aloft the rude figures of the 
 two Maries in their little boat, and on 
 every side devout pilgrims strove to kiss, 
 or at least just touch, the holy bark. 
 Across the sands to the sea they went, 
 to the waters edge, and then right into 
 
190 
 
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THE MARIES' FEAST 
 
 191 
 
 the water, gipsies, people, and even priests. 
 For a moment the boat was set afloat 
 upon the waves, there where at the dawn 
 of Christianity the wind had driven the 
 
 IN THE WATER. 
 
 saints from Jerusalem. And the gipsies 
 again raised it aloft and waded to land; 
 the procession, with banners waving, can- 
 dles flickering dimly in the sunshine, hymns 
 loudly chanted, turned again across the 
 sands, through the shadowy streets, and 
 brought back their beloved Maries. The 
 sick were placed once more about the 
 altar, and shouts of Vivent les Saintes 
 Maries! echoed through the church until, 
 toward evening, the ark rose slowly to 
 
192 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 its airy chapel, while the faithful watched 
 it with loving eyes. 
 
 But it had hardly reached its shrine 
 when the church was empty. In ten min- 
 utes every one had mounted cart, or dili- 
 gence, or omnibus, and was leaving for 
 home. In a couple of hours not a trace 
 was to be seen of gipsy or Gentile. The 
 pilgrims had fled as if from the plague, or 
 as if they had entered for a race to Aries. 
 
 So ended the feast of the Maries. 
 
 For the people of the town there was a 
 Grand Ball, a Grand Arrival of the Bulls, 
 and a Grand Bull-Fight. But they were 
 much less grand than in Aries. 
 
 This, one of the last unexploited reli- 
 gious festivals of the world, will have lost 
 its character and simplicity before our 
 book is printed. For my friend, the engi- 
 neer, is at work on a railway. 
 
 j. p. 
 
LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 
 
IX 
 
 " r I A see what ? Daudet's mill ? For ex- 
 Jl ample, but you are drole when there 
 are thousands of Daudets and millions of 
 mills around here. Oh ! that Daudet ? I 
 never knew he did well enough to have a 
 mill. Why, he ran away from Nimes 
 when he was eighteen, when he might 
 have stayed and married his cousin Marie, 
 whose father Jean now runs the hotel at 
 Saint-Gilles. Quel coquin / Of course it is 
 not as good a hotel as mine, but still it is 
 quite good enough ! And what sort of a 
 mill has he got? An oil-mill or a wind- 
 mill? My faith, how can I know? I never 
 heard of it. You don't know? He put it 
 in a book ? How can you put a mill in a 
 book? What? That nasty little Alphonse 
 
196 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 Daudet wrote ' Tartarin de Tarascon ' ? O 
 my God ! I — we — we — we don't read 
 that book out here. You had better go 
 and ask his father-in-law at Fontvielle. He 
 knows all about him. We don't look at 
 such trash — insult — ah — ! " and Madame 
 Michel of the Hotel du Forum swept away 
 in the gorgeous black silk which she always 
 wears. 
 
 Then I went over to the cafe, and I 
 said to the lieutenant: ''Look here, I want 
 to go and hunt up Daudet' s windmill. It 's 
 somewhere out by Fontvielle." 
 
 And then the lieutenant said: "Because 
 he says it is somewhere out by Font- 
 vielle, is it that you suppose that it is by 
 Fontvielle? Thousand names of a million 
 names of a name ! Me, I am, as you very 
 well know, of Tarascon ; and because he 
 said there was a Tartarin, does it therefore 
 imply that all our noble city is filled with 
 des Tartarin, des Bompard, des Bezuquetf 
 We are serious, we are. Regard yourself. 
 Do you see that old man in the cart? He 
 is the father of LArlesienne. That beast of 
 a Daudet, why he came down here and that 
 
LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 
 
 197 
 
 — —^.-Hk, 
 
 
198 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 old man told him his history, and he put that 
 history, just as he heard it, in a book, and 
 he called that a story ! Why, you can go 
 now, and if you could understand Provencal, 
 you would hear the same thing from the old 
 man." 
 
 So I walked out by the hill of Corde 
 and under the Abbey of Montmajour, and, 
 sure enough, there to the right, away in 
 the distance, was the montagnette, white 
 and powdery as a stone quarry, topped, 
 not by one, but by three windmills. 
 
 I found my way through the curious 
 little streets of the town, every turn of 
 which shows a picture of a lovely white 
 wall, the green mosquito-netting over the 
 door, the bird-cage close by it, the stately 
 Roman matron sitting in the shade, to the 
 open vine-draped inn-yard, at the front of 
 which the townspeople drink beer on week- 
 days, and from the back go to see bull- 
 fights on Sunday ; and I asked the waiter 
 if he knew which was the windmill of 
 Daudet. 
 
 No ; he was new. But he thought that 
 the gentleman over there, who had lived 
 here all his life, would be most happy to 
 
LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 199 
 
 do himself the honor of having a glass of 
 beer with me, and he would tell me all 
 about it. 
 
 Knew Daudet? Of course he did. He 
 was like a father to him. "Why, in Paris 
 me and Daudet-s-bes-pals. But down 
 here Daudet-s-dishgrashed himshelf — writes 
 books, and we donsh speak-s-any more." 
 
 I asked a passing sergent de ville — or 
 I suppose I should say de village — if 
 he knew where the property of Daudet's 
 father-in-law was. 
 
 "But," he said, "do you suppose I know 
 the father-in-law of a man I never heard 
 of in my life ? What fools these Eng- 
 lish are!" 
 
 I, however, only took courage, and mak- 
 ing my way through the most picturesque 
 of Provencal towns, in the direction in 
 which I knew the windmills must be, I 
 came out on a wilderness of market-gardens, 
 then to a low stony series of gorse-covered 
 mounds, which led up to the three forsaken 
 and sailless mills — three red-topped, white 
 pepper-pots dominating the landscape. I 
 climbed up to them, a walk of two minutes. 
 It must be here. 
 
200 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 A pretty pine-wood, glittering in sun- 
 light, spread before me to the foot of the 
 hillside. The horizon was cut by the bold 
 crests of the Alpilles. Behind, like islands 
 in the vast sea of La Crau, were Montma- 
 jour and Aries, and, beyond, the Rhone 
 losing itself in the Camargue which, in its 
 turn, was lost in the horizon, all this lovely 
 Provencal country living in the light. But 
 from the chateau, not away off as I had 
 imagined it would be, leaving the old mill not 
 alone, isolated and solitary on its height, — 
 a perfect place for work, — but within con- 
 venient sound of the dinner-bell, came 
 voices and laughter. Here must live the 
 old Provencal family, no less original and 
 characteristic than their house hidden 
 among the pines. Doubtless the mother, 
 a vraie bourgeois e de campagne, the Mayor, 
 the Consul, the Notary, the Advocate, her 
 four sons, would welcome me, and make 
 me, too, take my place in the circle around 
 the old mother. Doubtless I should hear 
 them call her chere Marnan, tenderly and 
 respectfully. 
 
 I did not jump the low stone wall and 
 make my way through the dense under- 
 
LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 201 
 
 growth, but went around by the front 
 gate, though it was quite a little walk. 
 
 Instead of the beautiful old chateau, a 
 brand-new sample of the Provencal jerry- 
 builder's art reared itself proudly among 
 the pines, which, on that side, had been 
 ruthlessly cut away. No one was about. 
 The windows were tight-shut. I made 
 my way to the back, only to interrupt the 
 naive amusements of a portier in undress, 
 several lady's-maids, and some grooms, 
 all of whom, evidently, had just arrived 
 from Paris. 
 
 ''Ladies and gentlemen," said I in my 
 politest French, " could you tell me by 
 chance which is the mill of Daudet ? " 
 
 "Sir," said one of them, dropping a copy 
 of " Le Petit Journal," "you of course refer 
 to the son-in-law of our esteemed master 
 — to the illustrious Alphonse Daudet ? " 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," said I, "it is 
 so." And we bowed. "And further, could 
 you tell me in which one of the three 
 windmills I see before me on the neigh- 
 boring hill the illustrious son-in-law of your 
 excellent master was pleased to take up his 
 habitation ? " 
 
202 PLAY IN PROVENCE 
 
 "Is it possible that this foreigner has 
 come here for the purpose of insulting us, 
 by saying that our master Daudet lives 
 in a windmill ? Blue death ! Is it not 
 that Daudet may inhabit the whole of 
 this splendid palace ? And why should 
 he live in a dirty windmill? Has he not 
 six rooms here ? Am I not his valet ? 
 Shall I turn the dogs on him, or shall I 
 thrash him myself? " 
 
 I saw that these people were not in a 
 fit condition to be reasoned with, and I 
 discontinued my search for le moulin de 
 Daudet. 
 
 )■ p. 
 
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