In the dominion of Vielmur there is an inner empire. Nominally, the
Vidame is the reigning sovereign; but the power behind his throne is
Mise Fougueiroun. The term "Mise" is an old-fashioned Provencal title of
respect for women of the little bourgeoisie--tradesmen's and
shopkeepers' wives and the like--that has become obsolescent since the
Revolution and very generally has given place to the fine-ladyish
"Madamo." With a little stretching, it may be rendered by our English
old-fashioned title of "mistress"; and Mise Fougueiroun, who is the
Vidame's housekeeper, is mistress over his household in a truly
masterful way.
This personage is a little round woman, still plumply pleasing although
she is rising sixty, who is arrayed always with an exquisite neatness in
the dress--the sober black-and-white of the elder women, not the gay
colours worn by the young girls--of the Pays d'Arles; and--although
shortness and plumpness are at odds with majesty of deportment--she has,
at least, the peremptory manner of one long accustomed to command. As is
apt to be the way with little round women, her temper is of a brittle
cast and her hasty rulings sometimes smack of injustice; but her nature
(and this also is characteristic of her type) is so warmly generous that
her heart easily can be caught into kindness on the rebound. The Vidame,
who in spite of his antiquarian testiness is something of a philosopher,
takes advantage of her peculiarities to compass such of his wishes as
happen to run counter to her laws. His Machiavellian policy is to draw
her fire by a demand of an extravagant nature; and then, when her lively
refusal has set her a little in the wrong, handsomely to ask of her as
a favour what he really requires--a method that never fails of success.
By my obviously sincere admiration of the Chateau and its surroundings,
and by a discreet word or two implying a more personal admiration--a
tribute which no woman of the Pays d'Arles ever is too old to accept
graciously--I was so fortunate as to win Mise Fougueiroun's favour at
the outset; a fact of which I was apprised on the evening of my
arrival--it was at dinner, and the housekeeper herself had brought in a
bottle of precious Chateauneuf-du-Pape--by the cordiality with which she
joined forces with the Vidame in reprobating my belated coming to the
Chateau. Actually, I was near a fortnight behind the time named in my
invitation: which had stated expressly that Christmas began in Provence
on the Feast of Saint Barbara, and that I was expected not later than
that day--December 4th.
"Monsieur should have been here," said the housekeeper with decision,
"when we planted the blessed Saint Barbara's grain. And now it is grown
a full span. Monsieur will not see Christmas at all!"
But my apologetic explanation that I never even had heard of Saint
Barbara's grain only made my case the more deplorable.
"Mai!" exclaimed Mise Fougueiroun, in the tone of one who faces suddenly
a real calamity. "Can it be that there are no Christians in monsieur's
America? Is it possible that down there they do not keep the Christmas
feast at all?"
To cover my confusion, the Vidame intervened with an explanation which
made America appear in a light less heathenish. "The planting of Saint
Barbara's grain," he said, "is a custom that I think is peculiar to the
South of France. In almost every household in Provence, and over in
Languedoc too, on Saint Barbara's day the women fill two, sometimes
three, plates with wheat or lentils which they set afloat in water and
then stand in the warm ashes of the fire-place or on a sunny window
ledge to germinate. This is done in order to foretell the harvest of the
coming year, for as Saint Barbara's grain grows well or ill so will the
harvest of the coming year be good or bad; and also that there may be on
the table when the Great Supper is served on Christmas Eve--that is
to say, on the feast of the Winter Solstice--green growing grain in
symbol or in earnest of the harvest of the new year that then begins.
[Illustration: PLANTING SAINT BARBARA'S GRAIN]
"The association of the Trinitarian Saint Barbara with this custom," the
Vidame continued, "I fear is a bit of a makeshift. Were three plates of
grain the rule, something of a case would be made out in her favour. But
the rule, so far as one can be found, is for only two. The custom must
be of Pagan origin, and therefore dates from far back of the time when
Saint Barbara lived in her three-windowed tower at Heliopolis. Probably
her name was tagged to it because of old these votive and prophetic
grain-fields were sown on what in Christian times became her dedicated
day. But whatever light-mannered goddess may have been their patroness
then, she is their patroness now; and from their sowing we date the
beginning of our Christmas feast."
It was obvious that this explanation of the custom went much too far for
Mise Fougueiroun. At the mention of its foundation in Paganism she
sniffed audibly, and upon the Vidame's reference to the light-mannered
goddess she drew her ample skirts primly about her and left the room.
The Vidame smiled. "I have scandalized Mise, and to-morrow I shall have
to listen to a lecture," he said; and in a moment continued: "It is not
easy to make our Provencaux realize how closely we are linked to older
peoples and to older times. The very name for Christmas in Provencal,
Calendo, tells how this Christian festival lives on from the Roman
festival of the Winter Solstice, the January Kalends; and the beliefs
and customs which go with its celebration still more plainly mark its
origin. Our farmers believe, for instance, that these days which now are
passing--the twelve days, called _coumtie_, immediately preceding
Christmas--are foretellers of the weather for the new twelve months to
come; each in its turn, by rain or sunshine or by heat or cold, showing
the character of the correspondingly numbered month of the new year.
That the twelve prophetic days are those which immediately precede the
solstice puts their endowment with prophetic power very far back into
antiquity. Our farmers, too, have the saying, 'When Christmas falls on
a Friday you may sow in ashes'--meaning that the harvest of the ensuing
year surely will be so bountiful that seed sown anywhere will grow; and
in this saying there is a strong trace of Venus worship, for
Friday--Divendre in Provencal--is the day sacred to the goddess of
fertility and bears her name. That belief comes to us from the time when
the statue of Aphrodite, dug up not long since at Marseille, was
worshipped here. Our _Pater de Calendo_--our curious Christmas prayer
for abundance during the coming year--clearly is a Pagan supplication
that in part has been diverted into Christian ways; and in like manner
comes to us from Paganism the whole of our yule-log ceremonial."
The Vidame rose from the table. "Our coffee will be served in the
library," he said. He spoke with a perceptible hesitation, and there was
anxiety in his tone as he added: "Mise makes superb coffee; but
sometimes, when I have offended her, it is not good at all." And he
visibly fidgeted until the coffee arrived, and proved by its excellence
that the housekeeper had been too noble to take revenge.