The Christmas Kalends of Provence Part 2

Then we would meet a shepherd, wrapped in his long brown cloak and leaning on his staff, a silhouette against the western sky.

"Where are you going, little ones?"

"We are going to meet the Kings! Can you tell us if they are far off?"

"Ah, the Kings. Certainly. They are over there behind the cypresses.

They are coming. You will see them soon."

On we would run to meet the Kings so near, with our fouga.s.so and our figs and our hay for the hungry camels. The day would be waning rapidly, the sun dropping down into a great cloud-bank above the mountains, the wind nipping us more shrewdly as it grew still more chill. Our hearts also would be chilling. Even the bravest of us would be doubting a little this adventure upon which we were bound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE Pa.s.sING OF THE KINGS]

Then, of a sudden, a flood of radiant glory would be about us, and from the dark cloud above the mountains would burst forth a splendour of glowing crimson and of royal purple and of glittering gold!

"Les Rois Mages! Les Rois Mages!" we would cry. "They are coming!

They are here at last!"

But it would be only the last rich dazzle of the sunset. Presently it would vanish. The owls would be hooting. The chill night would be settling down upon us, out there in the bleak country, sorrowful, alone. Fear would take hold of us. To keep up our courage a little, we would nibble at the figs which we had hoped to give to the pages, at the fouga.s.so which we had hoped to present to the Kings. As for the hay for the hungry camels, we would throw it away. Shivering in the wintry dusk, we would return sadly to our homes.

And when we reached our homes again our mothers would ask: "Well, did you see them, the Kings?"

"No; they pa.s.sed by on the other side of the Rhone, behind the mountains."

"But what road did you take?"

"The road to Arles."

"Ah, my poor child! The Kings don't come that way. They come from the East. You should have gone out to meet them on the road to Saint-Remy. And what a sight you have missed! Oh, how beautiful it was when they came marching into Maillane--the drums, the trumpets, the pages, the camels! _Mon Dieu_, what a commotion! What a sight it was! And now they are in the church, making their homage before the manger in which the little Christ-Child lies. But never mind; after supper you shall see them all."

Then we would sup quickly, and so be off to the church, crowded with all Maillane. Barely would we be entered there when the organ would begin, at first softly and then bursting forth formidably, all our people singing with it, with the superb noel:

In the early morning I met a train Of three great Kings who were going on a journey!

High up before the altar, directly above the manger in which the Christ-Child was lying, would be the glittering _bello estello_; and making their homage before the manger would be the Kings whom it had guided thither from the East: old white-bearded King Melchior with his gift of incense; gallant young King Gaspard with his gift of treasure; black King Balthazar the Moor with his gift of myrrh.

How reverently we would gaze on them, and how we would admire the brave pages who carried the trains of their long mantles, and the hump-backed camels whose heads towered high above Saint Mary and Saint Joseph and the ox and the a.s.s.

Yes, there they were at last--the Kings!

Many and many a time in the after years have I gone a-walking on the Arles road at nightfall on the Eve of the Kings. It is the same--but not the same. The sun, over beyond the Rhone, is dipping toward the Cevennes; the leafless trees are red in the low sun-rays; across the fields stretch the black lines of cypress; even the old man, as long ago, is scratching in the hedge by the roadside for snails. And when darkness comes quickly, with the sun's setting, the owls hoot as of old.

But in the radiant glory of the sunset I no longer see the dazzle and the splendour of the Kings!

"Which way went they, the Kings?"

"Behind the mountains!"

VIII

In the morning of the day preceding Christmas a lurking, yet ill-repressed, excitement pervaded the Chateau and all its dependencies.

In the case of the Vidame and Mise Fougueiroun the excitement did not even lurk: it blazed forth so openly that they were as a brace of comets--bustling violently through our universe and dragging into their erratic wakes, away from normal orbits, the whole planetary system of the household and all the haply intrusive stars.

With my morning coffee came the explanation of a quite impossible smell of frying dough-nuts which had puzzled me on the preceding day: a magnificent golden-brown _fouga.s.so_, so perfect of its kind that any Provencal of that region--though he had come upon it in the sandy wastes of Sahara--would have known that its creator was Mise Fougueiroun. To compare the _fouga.s.so_ with our homely dough-nut does it injustice. It is a large flat open-work cake--a grating wrought in dough--an inch or so in thickness, either plain or sweetened or salted, fried delicately in the best olive-oil of Aix or Maussane. It is made throughout the winter, but its making at Christmas time is of obligation; and the custom obtains among the women--though less now than of old--of sending a _fouga.s.so_ as a Christmas gift to each of their intimates. As this custom had in it something more than a touch of vainglorious emulation, I well can understand why it has fallen into desuetude in the vicinity of Vielmur--where Mise Fougueiroun's inspired kitchening throws all other cook-work hopelessly into the shade. As I ate the "horns" (as its fragments are called) of my _fouga.s.so_ that morning, dipping them in my coffee according to the prescribed custom, I was satisfied that it deserved its high place in the popular esteem.

When I joined the Vidame below stairs I found him under such stress of Christmas excitement that he actually forgot his usual morning suggestion--made always with an off-hand freshness, as though the matter were entirely new--that we should take a turn along the lines of the Roman Camp. He was fidgeting back and forth between the hall (our usual place of morning meeting) and the kitchen: torn by his conflicting desires to attend upon me, his guest, and to take his accustomed part in the friendly ceremony that was going on below. Presently he compromised the divergencies of the situation, though with some hesitation, by taking me down with him into Mise Fougueiroun's domain--where he became frankly cheerful when he found that I was well received.

Although the morning still was young, work on the estate had been ended for the day, and about the door of the kitchen more than a score of labourers were gathered: all with such gay looks as to show that something of a more than ordinarily joyous nature was in train. Among them I recognized the young fellow whom we had met with his wife carrying away the yule-log; and found that all of them were workmen upon the estate who--either being married or having homes within walking distance--were to be furloughed for the day. This was according to the Provencal custom that Christmas must be spent by one's own fire-side; and it also was according to Provencal custom that they were not suffered to go away with empty hands.

Mise Fougueiroun--a plump embodiment of Benevolence--stood beside a table on which was a great heap of her own _fouga.s.so_, and big baskets filled with dried figs and almonds and celery, and a genial battalion of bottles standing guard over all. One by one the va.s.sals were called up--there was a strong flavour of feudalism in it all--and to each, while the Vidame wished him a "_Bni festo!_" the housekeeper gave his Christmas portion: a _fouga.s.so_, a double-handful each of figs and almonds, a stalk of celery, and a bottle of _vin cue_[2]--the cordial that is used for the libation of the yule-log and for the solemn yule-cup; and each, as he received his portion, made his little speech of friendly thanks--in several cases most gracefully turned--and then was off in a hurry for his home. Most of them were dwellers in the immediate neighbourhood; but four or five had before them walks of more than twenty miles, with the same distance to cover in returning the next day. But great must be the difficulty or the distance that will keep a Provencal from his own people and his own hearth-stone at Christmas-tide!

In ill.u.s.tration of this home-seeking trait, I have from my friend Mistral the story that his own grandfather used to tell regularly every year when all the family was gathered about the yule-fire on Christmas Eve:

It was back in the Revolutionary times, and Mistral the grandfather--only he was not a grandfather then, but a mettlesome young soldier of two-and-twenty--was serving with the Army of the Pyrenees, down on the borders of Spain. December was well on, but the season was open--so open that he found one day a tree still bearing oranges. He filled a basket with the fruit and carried it to the Captain of his company. It was a gift for a king, down there in those hard times, and the Captain's eyes sparkled. "Ask what thou wilt, _mon brave_," he said, "and if I can give it to thee it shall be thine."

Quick as a flash the young fellow answered: "Before a cannon-ball cuts me in two, Commandant, I should like to go to Provence and help once more to lay the yule-log in my own home. Let me do that!"

Now that was a serious matter. But the Captain had given his word, and the word of a soldier of the Republic was better than the oath of a king. Therefore he sat down at his camp-table and wrote:

Army of the Eastern Pyrenees, December 12, 1793.

We, Perrin, Captain of Military Transport, give leave to the citizen Francois Mistral, a brave Republican soldier, twenty-two years old, five feet six inches high, chestnut hair and eyebrows, ordinary nose, mouth the same, round chin, medium forehead, oval face, to go back into his province, to go all over the Republic, and, if he wants to, to go to the devil!

"With an order like that in his pocket," said Mistral, "you can fancy how my grandfather put the leagues behind him; and how joyfully he reached Maillane on the lovely Christmas Eve, and how there was danger of rib-cracking from the hugging that went on. But the next day it was another matter. News of his coming had flown about the town, and the Mayor sent for him.

"'In the name of the law, citizen,' the Mayor demanded, 'why hast thou left the army?'

"Now my grandfather was a bit of a wag, and so--with never a word about his famous pa.s.s--he answered: 'Well, you see I took a fancy to come and spend my Christmas here in Maillane.'

"At that the Mayor was in a towering pa.s.sion. 'Very good, citizen,' he cried. 'Other people also may take fancies--and mine is that thou shalt explain this fancy of thine before the Military Tribunal at Tarascon.

Off with him there!'

"And then away went my grandfather between a brace of gendarmes, who brought him in no time before the District Judge: a savage old fellow in a red cap, with a beard up to his eyes, who glared at him as he asked: 'Citizen, how is it that thou hast deserted thy flag?'

"Now my grandfather, who was a sensible man, knew that a joke might be carried too far; therefore he whipped out his pa.s.s and presented it, and so in a moment set everything right.

"'Good, very good, citizen!' said old Redcap. 'This is as it should be.

Thy Captain says that thou art a brave soldier of the Republic, and that is the best that the best of us can be. With a pa.s.s like that in thy pocket thou canst snap thy fingers at all the mayors in Provence; and the devil himself had best be careful--shouldst thou go down that way, as thy pa.s.s permits thee--how he trifles with a brave soldier of France!'

"But my grandfather did not try the devil's temper," Mistral concluded.

"He was satisfied to stay in his own dear home until the Day of the Kings was over, and then he went back to his command."

IX

The day dragged a little when we had finished in the kitchen with the giving of Christmas portions and the last of the farm-hands, calling back "_Bni festo!_," had gone away. For the womenkind, of course, there was a world to do; and Mise Fougueiroun whisked us out of her dominions with a pretty plain statement that our company was less desirable than our room. But for the men there was only idle waiting until night should come.

As for the Vidame--who is a fiery fume of a little old gentleman, never happy unless in some way busily employed--this period of stagnation was so galling that in sheer pity I mounted him upon his hobby and set him to galloping away. 'Twas an easy matter, and the stimulant that I administered was rather dangerously strong: for I brought up the blackest beast in the whole herd of his abominations by asking him if there were not some colour of reason in the belief that Marius lay not at Vielmur but at Glanum--now Saint-Remy-de-Provence--behind the lines of Roman wall which exist there to this day.

So far as relieving the strain of the situation was concerned, my expedient was a complete success; but the storm that I raised was like to have given the Vidame such an attack of bilious indigestion begotten of anger as would have spoiled the Great Supper for him; and as for myself, I was overwhelmed for some hours by his avalanche of words. But the long walk that we took in the afternoon, that he might give me convincing proof of the soundness of his archaeological theories, fortunately set matters right again; and when we returned in the late day to the Chateau my old friend had recovered his normal serenity of soul.