In the early morning a lively clatter rising from the farm-yard came
through my open window, along with the sunshine and the crisp freshness
of the morning air. My apartment was in the southeast angle of the
Chateau, and my bedroom windows--overlooking the inner court--commanded
the view along the range of the Alpilles to the Luberoun and
Mont-Ventour, a pale great opal afloat in waves of clouds; while from
the windows of my sitting-room I saw over Mont-Majour and Arles far
across the level Camargue to the hazy horizon below which lay the
Mediterraenean.
In the court-yard there was more than the ordinary morning commotion of
farm life, and the buzz of talk going on at the well and the racing and
shouting of a parcel of children all had in it a touch of eagerness and
expectancy. While I still was drinking my coffee--in the excellence and
delicate service of which I recognized the friendly hand of Mise
Fougueiroun--there came a knock at my door; and, upon my answer, the
Vidame entered--looking so elate and wearing so blithe an air that he
easily might have been mistaken for a frolicsome middle-aged sunbeam.
"Hurry! Hurry!" he cried, while still shaking both my hands. "This is a
day of days--we are going now to bring home the _cacho-fio_, the
yule-log! Put on a pair of heavy shoes--the walking is rough on the
mountain-side. But be quick, and come down the moment that you are
ready. Now I must be off. There is a world for me to do!" And the old
gentleman bustled out of the room while he still was speaking, and in a
few moments I heard him giving orders to some one with great animation
on the terrace below.
When I went down stairs, five minutes later, I found him standing in the
hall by the open doorway: through which I saw, bright in the morning
light across the level landscape, King Rene's castle and the church of
Sainte-Marthe in Tarascon; and over beyond Tarascon, high on the farther
bank of the Rhone, Count Raymond's castle of Beaucaire; and in the far
distance, faintly, the jagged peaks of the Cevennes.
But that was no time for looking at landscapes. "Come along!" he cried.
"They all are waiting for us at the Mazet," and he hurried me down the
steps to the terrace and so around to the rear of the Chateau, talking
away eagerly as we walked.
"It is a most important matter," he said, "this bringing home of the
_cacho-fio_. The whole family must take part in it. The head of the
family--the grandfather, the father, or the eldest son--must cut the
tree; all the others must share in carrying home the log that is to make
the Christmas fire. And the tree must be a fruit-bearing tree. With us
it usually is an almond or an olive. The olive especially is sacred. Our
people, getting their faith from their Greek ancestors, believe that
lightning never strikes it. But an apple-tree or a pear-tree will serve
the purpose, and up in the Alp region they burn the acorn-bearing oak.
What we shall do to-day is an echo of Druidical ceremonial--of the time
when the Druid priests cut the yule-oak and with their golden sickles
reaped the sacred mistletoe; but old Jan here, who is so stiff for
preserving ancient customs, does not know that this custom, like many
others that he stands for, is the survival of a rite."
While the Vidame was speaking we had turned from the terrace and were
nearing the Mazet--which diminutive of the Provencal word _mas_, meaning
farm-house, is applied to the farm establishment at Vielmur partly in
friendliness and partly in indication of its dependence upon the great
house, the Chateau. At the arched entrance we found the farm family
awaiting us: Old Jan, the steward of the estate, and his wife Elizo;
Marius, their elder son, a man over forty, who is the active manager of
affairs; their younger son, Esperit, and their daughter Nanoun; and the
wife of Marius, Janetoun, to whose skirts a small child was clinging
while three or four larger children scampered about her in a whir of
excitement over the imminent event by which Christmas really would be
ushered in.
When my presentation had been accomplished--a matter a little
complicated in the case of old Jan, who, in common with most of the old
men hereabouts, speaks only Provencal--we set off across the home
vineyard, and thence went upward through the olive-orchards, to the high
region on the mountain-side where grew the almond-tree which the Vidame
and his steward in counsel together had selected for the Christmas
sacrifice.
Nanoun, a strapping red-cheeked black-haired bounce of twenty, ran back
into the Mazet as we started; and joined us again, while we were
crossing the vineyard, bringing with her a gentle-faced fair girl of her
own age who came shyly. The Vidame, calling her Magali, had a cordial
word for this new-comer; and nudged me to bid me mark how promptly
Esperit was by her side. "It is as good as settled," he whispered. "They
have been lovers since they were children. Magali is the daughter of
Elizo's foster-sister, who died when the child was born. Then Elizo
brought her home to the Mazet, and there she has lived her whole
lifelong. Esperit is waiting only until he shall be established in the
world to speak the word. And the scamp is in a hurry. Actually, he is
pestering me to put him at the head of the Lower Farm!"
The Vidame gave this last piece of information in a tone of severity;
but there was a twinkle in his kind old eyes as he spoke which led me to
infer that Master Esperit's chances for the stewardship of the Lower
Farm were anything but desperate, and I noticed that from time to time
he cast very friendly glances toward these young lovers--as our little
procession, mounting the successive terraces, went through the
olive-orchards along the hill-side upward.
Presently we were grouped around the devoted almond-tree: a gnarled old
personage, of a great age and girth, having that pathetic look of
sorrowful dignity which I find always in superannuated trees--and now
and then in humans of gentle natures who are conscious that their days
of usefulness are gone. Esperit, who was beside me, felt called upon to
explain that the old tree was almost past bearing and so was worthless.
His explanation seemed to me a bit of needless cruelty; and I was glad
when Magali, evidently moved by the same feeling, intervened softly
with: "Hush, the poor tree may understand!" And then added, aloud: "The
old almond must know that it is a very great honour for any tree to be
chosen for the Christmas fire!"
This little touch of pure poetry charmed me. But I was not surprised by
it--for pure poetry, both in thought and in expression, is found often
among the peasants of Provence.
Even the children were quiet as old Jan took his place beside the tree,
and there was a touch of solemnity in his manner as he swung his heavy
axe and gave the first strong blow--that sent a shiver through all the
branches, as though the tree realized that death had overtaken it at
last. When he had slashed a dozen times into the trunk, making a deep
gash in the pale red wood beneath the brown bark, he handed the axe to
Marius; and stood watching silently with the rest of us while his son
finished the work that he had begun. In a few minutes the tree tottered;
and then fell with a growling death-cry, as its brittle old branches
crashed upon the ground.
Whatever there had been of unconscious reverence in the silence that
attended the felling was at an end. As the tree came down everybody
shouted. Instantly the children were swarming all over it. In a moment
our little company burst into the flood of loud and lively talk that is
inseparable in Provence from gay occasions--and that is ill held in
check even at funerals and in church. They are the merriest people in
the world, the Provencaux.