Part 10

But Camargue is, as every one knows, the mother of the _mistral_--the vast sunny plain, with Crau, which, after sending the air up by dint of overheating it, is compelled to summon other air in order to breathe at all. And thereupon, down the Rhone valley, at the summons of the desert, comes a torrent of fresh air, which is the companion of the river, and is called the _mistral_. It roared through Renaud's open vest as in the belly of a sail, and, taking Prince sidewise, kept him back a little. It was no easy matter to leap the ditch. That gave the advantage to Rampal, who was now trotting freely along, face to the wind.

The ditch was now between the two men, and Rampal's only purpose in trotting along the edge of it was to limber up his horse's legs. Renaud, abandoning the idea of crossing the ditch for the moment, decided to follow along on his side. The two horsemen rode thus for a few moments. Rampal had prudently protected his face from the _mistral_ with a red silk handkerchief, the ends of which flapped about his neck.

Suddenly, taking advantage of a spot where the banks came somewhat nearer together, Renaud lifted his horse and landed on the other side of the ditch at the very instant that Rampal, having executed the same manoeuvre in the opposite direction, landed on the side Renaud had left.

Renaud did not find a favorable spot for crossing at once, and Rampal gained upon him.

Having at last crossed the obstacle once more, Renaud pursued Rampal at full speed, and so rapidly that, when Rampal turned to judge the distance between them, he saw Renaud hardly fifty paces behind him.

He had just time to turn about, and waited for his foe, with lance in rest, leaning forward in his saddle, his feet planted firmly in the broad stirrups.

Renaud, unluckily, was charging against the _mistral_. A sort of hail, consisting of sand and of the little snails that cling in myriads to the leaves of the _enganes_, beat into his face and angered him.

Five hundred feet away, Bernard was looking on--not saying a word, for fear of Rampal, but praying fervently for Renaud, and he fancied that he was watching two champions standing on the long ladders in the prows of the jousting boats, with their lances held firmly under their right arms. Rampal's spear, being suddenly lowered too far by a false step of his horse, pricked the heel of Renaud's boot and grazed Prince's flank, whereupon he jumped violently aside, as if he were avoiding the horns of a heifer.

Renaud's spear tore the sleeve of his enemy's blue shirt and carried away the piece.

The horsemen met and passed each other.

Rampal was the first to turn, and rode after Renaud, ready to strike him from behind, while he was struggling to stop Prince, who had acquired too much momentum; and Prince, hearing the other horse's hurried step, and feeling his hot breath behind him, furious at being held back, fearing that he would be overtaken, turned about so quickly and unexpectedly in his wrath, that Rampal took fright and turned again, but involuntarily.

Renaud, finding that his pursuer had once more become a fugitive, gave Prince a free rein.

The stallion was off like the wind.

The horsemen sped along, pushed on by the gusts, the wind being now behind them.

The mares and heifers, the whole drove, in fact, stood with their heads in the air, staring eyes, and nostrils distended, watching the two men come down toward them, bending over their horses' necks, reins flying, as if pursued by the tempest along the shores of the pond, whose waters were dancing and rippling in the wind.

Here and there the little tamarisks, bent almost double, seemed likewise to be fleeing from the storm. There were no more gnats or dragon-flies in the air. Above the Vaccares the spray was flying. The _mistral_ swept everything clean.

Two minutes later, powerless to control their enervated beasts, excited as they were by the struggle and the wind, the two adversaries rode at full speed through the drove.

Thereupon, inflamed by the sight of their two stallions racing madly by, alarmed at the sight of the waving spears, intoxicated by the wild wind that found a way into their bodies through their fiery nostrils, the mares neighed and reared and started off together on the gallop. The heifers followed. Hundreds of hoofs and cloven feet beat the ground with a noise like the roaring of a tempest, and the whole drove, lashed by the _mistral_, which howled behind them, biting them and urging them forward, rolled across the plain like a second Rhone. And while Bernard was saddling his horse in hot haste to overtake them, the two enemies galloped in the midst of the hurricane as if borne on by the stamping of eighty beasts, whose hoofs raised clouds of sand and showers of spray and mud in the wind that travelled faster than they!

At the head of this whirlwind, and still in the midst of it, Renaud succeeded in overtaking Rampal. When he was near enough to touch him, he selected the precise moment when his horse was raising his left hind foot, to strike him on the right hind-quarter. The right leg, just as it was about to strike the ground, bent double under the blow of a spear directed by a man riding at a gallop, and Rampal and his horse rolled over among the countless galloping hoofs that shook the earth.

Bulls and horses leaped over the two bodies lying there, man and beast, and when the drove, tired and subdued, came to a stop half a league farther on, Renaud, still riding Prince, was holding by the bridle his recaptured horse, bleeding only in the flank and at the nose.

Standing beside him, with rage in his heart, stained with mud and dust, his face bleeding and the skin torn from the palms of the hands, Rampal, red as fire, was occupied in rearranging his breeches and fastening his belt.

"Wait till next time, Renaud! After this you would expect a man to seek revenge, eh?"

But his shrill voice was drowned in the howling of the _mistral_.

"Give me back my saddle!" he shouted in a louder tone.

The drover's saddle is his whole fortune. He cherishes it, loves it, takes pride in it.

"Your saddle?" rejoined Renaud suspiciously. "Come with me and get it! Bernard will give it to you."

He shrugged his shoulders, and without another word rode after the drove, leading back to it the emaciated horse which Rampal had sadly misused.

He was extremely glad that Blanchet had had no part in this duel. He recognized Blanchet from afar in among the mares, but sleeker and better cared for than the others. A true lady's horse, staunch as he was!--And now he would be able to return him to his mistress, as he had his former horse, in addition to Prince. And his nostrils dilated with the pride of victory. He inhaled long draughts of the bracing salt air.

He was thinking of two women--yes, of two, not one only!--who would say of him when they heard what had taken place: "That is a man!" And Renaud's noble horse shared his master's pride, as he capered about, in the liberty accorded him to choose his own pace, with the proud bearing of a stallion that had won the race in the sight of his whole drove.

XV

MONSIEUR LE CURE'S ARCHAEOLOGY

The cure of Saintes-Maries was a man of about sixty, well preserved, very tall and stout, with bright eyes whose light he quenched with spectacles, and energetic gestures which he purposely restrained.

The parsonage was near the church, the doorway shaded by a number of elms. The house, in accordance with the prevailing custom of the province, was whitewashed once a year, outside and in, like the houses of the Arabs.

The houses in Saintes-Maries are low. The streets are narrow, and wind about to escape the sun. The shadows under the awnings of the little shops have a bluish cast. In front of the doors, which open on the street, hang transparent curtains of common linen, in some cases of very fine net-work, to stop the flies and admit the light after it has passed through the sieve, so to speak. And, behind them, the maidens of Saintes-Maries are confined like birdlings in a cage, or like very dangerous little wild beasts. Are not all maidens to be looked upon with more or less suspicion?

The maidens of Saintes-Maries wear the Arles head-dress and the neckerchief, with fold upon fold held in place by hundreds of pins, by as many pins as a rose-bush has thorns; and where the thick folds of the handkerchief open, in the depths of the _chapelle_, you can see the little golden cross gleaming upon the firm young flesh rising and falling with the maidenly sigh. The apron worn over the ample skirt seems like a skirt itself, it is so broad and full, and slender feet peep out from beneath it, as agile as the Camargue partridge's red claws, that love to scamper swiftly over the fields to escape the hunter, knowing that Camargue is broad and space is plentiful.

Many are the pale faces at Saintes, for, whatever they may say, the marshes still breed fever, and this country, to which people come to be miraculously cured, is, generally speaking, a country of disease; but pallor goes well with the wavy black hair, worn in broad puffs on the temples and falling upon the neck in two heavy masses which are turned up to meet the _chignon_. To help them to forget what is depressing in their lives, they resort, here as elsewhere, to coquetry--and the rest!--And then they are accustomed to the fever, which gives birth to dreams and visions; they tame it, as it were; it is not cruel to the people it knows, and does not lead them to the cemetery until they are old and gray.

The cemetery is a few steps from the village, a few steps from the sea. It lies at the foot of the sand-dunes, surrounded by a low wall. The dead and gone villagers of Saintes-Maries lie sleeping there between the sea and the desert of Camargue: many fishermen who lived in their flat-bottomed boats; many herdsmen who lived on horseback in the plain.

All of them alike find there, in death, the things amid which their lives have been passed: the salt sand, filled with tiny shells, the _enganes_ that grow in spite of everything, reddened by the salt-laden winds, and heavy with soda,--and the thin shadow of the pink-plumed tamarisk. There they hear the neighing of the wild mares, the shouts of the herdsmen contending on the race-course on fete-days, or stirring up the black bulls in the arena under the walls of the church. They hear the sails flapping, and the _han_ of the bare-legged fishermen pushing their flat-bottomed boats or barges into the water; and night and day, the pounding of the sea in its efforts to push back the island of Camargue, while the Rhone, on the other hand, is constantly pushing it into the sea, and adding to its bulk with mud and stones brought down from its head-waters. The sea smites the island as if it would have none of it, but all in vain,--it, too, can but augment its size with the sand it casts up.

And the sand from the sea makes a broad hem of dunes along the shores of Camargue.

No one can fail to see that the dunes, those shifting, tomb-like hills of sand, must have served as models for the massive pyramids, the tombs of kings, in the Egyptian desert.

At the feet of the little pyramids of sand sleep the dead of Camargue.

But whither has the thought of death led us? Why do we tarry here, while Livette is timidly lifting the knocker at monsieur le cure's door?

The blow echoed within the house, in the empty hall. Livette was much perturbed. What was she to say? Where should she begin? The beginning is always the most difficult part. She would like to run away now, but it is too late. She hears steps inside. Marion, the old servant, opens the door.

Marion has a practised eye. When any one knocks at Monsieur le cure's door, she knows, simply by examining his face, what he wants, and frames her answers accordingly, on her own responsibility; for Monsieur le cure is subject to rheumatism: he suffers from fever, too, and Marion nurses Monsieur le cure! If he listened to Marion, he would nurse himself so carefully that all the sick people would have to die unshriven, without extreme unction, for Marion would always have a good reason to give to prevent him from going out by day or night, when the _mistral_ was blowing or the wind was from the east, summer or winter, rain or shine.

But Monsieur le cure would smile and do just what he chose. He was a good priest. He never failed in his duty. He loved his parishioners. He assisted them on all occasions with his purse and his advice. He was beloved by them all.

He loved his parishioners, his commune, and his curious church, which was once a fortress; he was familiar with the shape of its every stone. He loved it both as priest and as archaeologist, for Monsieur le cure is a scholar, and his church is, in very truth, one of the most interesting monuments in France, with its abnormally thick, high, and threatening walls, crowned with jutting galleries and surmounted by crenelated battlements, with an unobstructed view of sea and land in all directions, and overlooked by four turrets, and a tower in the centre,--the highest of all,--from whose belfry the alarum bell, in the old days, often aroused the country-side, repeating in its shrillest tones: "Here come the heathens, good people of Saintes-Maries! Attention! Come and shut yourselves up here! Make ready your arrows and the boiling oil and pitch!"--Or else: "Hasten to the shore, good people of Saintes-Maries! A French vessel is sinking!"

And to this day it seems still to say, to all, far and near: "I see you! I see you!"

One could go on forever describing the church of Saintes-Maries, and relating anecdotes concerning it.

Behind the battlements at the top, and enclosing the roof of flat stones, runs a narrow pathway, where the archers and patrols in the old days used to make their rounds, surrounded by countless sea-swallows. Along the ridge-pole of the roof, of overlapping broad flat stones, between which thick tufts of _nasques_ are growing, rises a high carved comb, in ogive-like curves, surmounted by fleurs-de-lis.

All this is beautiful and grand, but there is a little thing of which the villagers are as proud as of the bell-tower and the turrets, and that is a marble tablet, about five courses in length by three in height, on which two lions are represented. One is protecting its whelp; the other seems to be protecting a little child, as if it were its own offspring. It seems that this tablet was carved by a Greek workman long, long ago.

The marble is set into the southern wall of the church, beside the small door.

You enter. The ogive arch of the nave compels you to raise your eyes to a great height. And as you enter by the main door, your attention is attracted by a romanesque arch, directly in front of you, at the far end of the church, at least five metres below the ogive arch of the nave; in the centre of this arch are the blessed reliquaries, resting upon the sill of an opening like a window, flanked by two columns. From that position they are lowered once in every year at the ends of two ropes.

The choir is some few feet higher than the flagging of the church. It is reached by two symmetrical staircases, between which is the grated door leading down into Sara's crypt. That door you can see, directly in front of you, at the end of the passage through the centre of the church, between the rows of chairs. One would say that it was the air-hole of a dungeon.

Down below, in the damp crypt, with its low arched roof and naked walls,--a veritable dungeon,--upon a mutilated marble altar, is the little glass shrine containing the relics of Saint Sara, the patron saint of the gipsies. There, amid the smoke of their candles, in an atmosphere made foul by human exhalations, you can see them once a year, huddled together in a dense crowd, mumbling their questionable prayers.

In the days of the Saracen invasions this crypt served as a storehouse for supplies, when all the inhabitants of the little village were forced to take refuge in the fortress-church.

Aigues-Mortes has her walls and her Constance Tower, massive as Babel; Nimes has her Arena and her Fountain--and the Pont du Gard, superb in its beauty, is also hers; Avignon her bridges, her ramparts, and her clocks with figures of armed men to strike the hours; Tarascon her Chateau, mirrored in the Rhone; Baux the fantastic ruins of her houses, hollowed, like the cells of a bee-hive, out of the solid rock of the hill-side; Montmajour has her tombs of little children, also dug, side by side, in the solid rock, and to-day filled with earth and flowers, like the troughs at which doves drink; Orange has her theatre and her triumphal arch; Arles has her theatre with the two pillars still upright in the centre; she has Saint-Trophime, too, with its sculptured facade and its _Allee des Alyscamps_, bordered with Christian sarcophagi and lofty poplars. But Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer has her church, which Monsieur le cure would not give for all the treasures of the other towns!

Marion saw plainly that Livette was depressed; Marion was touched when Livette said: "I must see Monsieur le cure," and as her master would not be seriously discommoded, there being no occasion for him to leave the house, Marion ushered Livette into the parlor.

It was a whitewashed room, but the cure had transformed it into a veritable museum, and the walls were completely hidden behind wooden cabinets, made by himself, and all filled with his collections.

There were pieces of antique pottery and of rainbow-hued antique glass. There were old medals.

One of the latter attracted Livette's attention. It represented a bull in the act of falling; one of his fore-legs had given way. A man, his conqueror, had seized him by the horns. That Grecian medal was struck centuries upon centuries ago. A label explained it to Livette, who thought at first that it was Renaud. Life is all repetition.

There were collections of plants and boxes filled with shells, and also many stuffed birds, all the varieties found in Camargue. For more than thirty years, fishermen and hunters had presented Monsieur le cure with curious objects and animals. Here was an otter from the Rhone, there a beaver, with his trowel-shaped tail and hooked teeth. It is a question of serious importance whether the beavers do not injure the dikes of the Rhone. The important point, you see, is that the water from the swamps should empty into the river or the sea through the canals, which run in all directions. Therefore, the dikes must hold firm and not let the Rhone overflow the swamps. And the beavers, they say, destroy the dikes. They gnaw into them when the great freshets come, to avoid the drift, and take refuge inside; and when the water comes in after them, they make a vertical hole through which to escape, and there is your dike, undermined, eaten into by the water! That is a bad state of affairs.

Livette raised her eyes. A reptile, with his mouth open, was hanging from the ceiling; he was very fat, and well he might be! he was a little crocodile, the last one killed in Camargue, a very long while ago!

In every nook left free by the natural curiosities some pious image was to be seen. Here the two Maries in their boat. There the Holy Women wrapping the Christ in his shroud. In another place, Magdalen at La Baume, kneeling in front of the death's-head. But Livette saw no image of Saint Sara.

Livette sat down and waited. Monsieur le cure did not come. The fact was, that Monsieur le cure, who had already written two monographs, one entitled _La Cure de Boismaux_, and the other _La Villa de la Mar_, was at that moment at work upon a third: _Concordance of the Legends of the Blessed Maries_, with this sub-title: _Concerning the strange and regrettable confusion that seems to exist between Saint Sara and Marie the Egyptian._

_La Cure de Boismaux_ also had a sub-title: _Monograph concerning the domains of the Chateau d'Avignon in Camargue._ Monsieur le cure recalled the fact that the domains of the Chateau d'Avignon formerly constituted a separate commune. That commune naturally had a cure, and in those days the proprietor of the Chateau d'Avignon was General Miollis, brother of the Bishop of Digne mentioned by Monsieur Victor Hugo in _Les Miserables_ under the name of Myriel.

In a special chapter, Monsieur le cure sought, to no purpose, to find a reason, telluric or otherwise, for the fact that the estates of the Chateau d'Avignon are particularly subject to invasion by locusts, which sometimes have to be fought in Camargue, as in Africa, by regiments.

As to the _Concordance_, that was a very important and very necessary work. It was based, in great measure, upon the authority of the _Black Book_. That Latin work, preserved in the archives of Saintes-Maries, was written, in 1521, by Vincent Philippon, who signed himself: 2000 Philippon![3] (Jesus himself did not disdain the pun.) There is a French translation of the _Black Book_. It was published in 1682, and begins thus:

"Au nom de Dieu mon oeuvre comancee Par Jesus-Christ soit toujours advancee. Le Saint-Esprit conduise sagement Ma main, ma plume, et mon entendement."[4]

Here follows the true version of the story of the patron saints of Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer.

Marie Jacobe, mother of Saint James the Less, Marie Salome, mother of Saint James the Greater and of Saint John the Evangelist, came not alone to the shores of Camargue. The boat without sail or oars contained also their servants Marcella and Sara, Lazarus and all his family, and several of the Christ's disciples.

Monsieur le cure would prove, with documents to sustain him, that Mary Magdalen was not in the boat. She came to Provence by some other means, no one can say by what miracle.

With the exception of the two Maries and Sara, all the passengers upon the miraculous craft dispersed in different directions, preaching and making converts.

The holy women did not leave Camargue, the island in the Rhone, divided at that time into a great number of small islands by the ponds--a veritable archipelago, called _Sticados_ and inhabited by heathens. In those days, all these small islands, formed by the swamps, were covered with forests and filled with wild beasts. And this delta of the Rhone was infested with crocodiles.

Now, a long, long time after the death of the holy women, a hunter, followed by his dogs, was passing over the spot where they lay buried in unknown graves; he fell in with a hermit there, beside a spring.

"My lord," said the hermit, "I had a revelation in a dream last night. In the sand beside this spring repose the bodies of three sainted women!"

The hunter was a Comte de Provence. His palace was at Arles, and the cure had every reason to believe that he was Guillaume I., son of Boson I., famous for his liberality to the church.

It was in 981. This Guillaume had overcome the Saracens, and Conrad I., King of Bourgogne, his suzerain, loved and respected him.

The prince, having listened to the hermit's tale, rode away musing deeply; not long after, he returned and caused a church in the form of a citadel to be built at that point of the coast, in the very centre of a spacious enclosure surrounded by moats.

Then he made known throughout Provence that special privileges would be accorded to all those who should build houses between the church and the moat.

Thus was founded the Villa-de-la-Mar--which is in fact a town (_ville_), although it is too often spoken of as a village, under its other name of Saintes-Maries.

The Comtes de Provence have always granted special privileges to the town.

Under Queen Jeanne, a guard was stationed all the time at the top of the church-tower to watch the ships and make signals. Sentinels were obliged to call to one another and answer every hour during the night. The people of Saintes-Maries were also exempted by the queen from payment of tolls and the tax upon salt.