MY FATHER
My early years were passed at the farm in the company of labourers,
reapers and shepherds.
When occasionally a townsman visited our farm, one of those who affected
to speak only French, it puzzled me sorely and even disconcerted me to
see my parents all at once take on a respectful manner to the stranger,
as though they felt him to be their superior. I was perplexed, too, at
hearing another tongue.
“Why is it,” I asked, “that man does not speak like we do?”
“Because he is a gentleman,” I was told.
“Then I will never be a gentleman,” I replied resentfully.
I remarked also that when we received visitors, such, for instance, as
the Marquis de Barbentane, our neighbour, my father, who when speaking
of my mother before the servants called her “the mistress,” to the
Marquis merely referred to her as “my wife.” The grand Marquis and his
lady, the Marquise, a sister of the great Général de Gallifet, whenever
they came used to bring me cakes and sweets, but in spite of this, no
sooner did I see them driving up in their carriage than, like the young
savage that I was, off I ran and hid in the hay-loft. In vain my poor
mother would call “Frédéric.” Crouching in the hay and holding my
breath, I waited until I heard the departing carriage wheels of our
guests, and my mother declaiming for the benefit of all: “It is
insufferable; here are Monsieur de Barbentane and Madame de Barbentane,
who come on purpose to see that child, and he goes off and hides
himself!”
And when I crept out of my hiding-place, instead of the sweets, I
received a good spanking.
What I really loved, however, was to go off with Papoty, our head-man,
when he set out with the plough behind the two mules.
“Come on, youngster, and I’ll teach you to plough,” he would call
enticingly.
Then and there off I would go, bareheaded and barefooted, briskly
following in the furrow, and as I ran, picking the flowers, primroses
and blue musk, turned up by the blade.
How joyous it was, this atmosphere of rustic life. Each season in turn
brought its round of labour. Ploughing, sowing, shearing, reaping, the
silk-worms, the harvests, the threshing, the vintage and the olive
gathering, unrolled before my eyes the majestic acts of the agricultural
life, always a stern, hard life, yet always one of calm and freedom.
A numerous company of labourers came and went at the farm, weeders,
haymakers, men hired by the day or the month, who with the goad, the
rake, or the fork a-shoulder toiled with the free noble gestures of the
peasants so well depicted in Léopold Robert’s pictures.
At the dinner or supper hour, the men, one after the other, trooped into
the farm-house, seating themselves according to their station around the
big table. Then the master, my father, at the head, would question them
gravely on the work of the day, the state of the flocks, of the ground
or the weather. The repast ended, the chief carter shut to the blade of
his big clasp-knife, the signal for all to rise.
In stature, in mind, as well as in character, my father towered above
these country folk, a grand old patriarch, dignified in speech, just in
his rule, beneficent to the poor, severe only to himself.
He loved to recall the early days when as a volunteer he served in the
army during the revolution, and to recount tales of the war as we sat
round the hearth in the evening.
Once during the Reign of Terror he had been requisitioned to carry corn
to Paris, where famine was then raging. It was just after they had
killed the king, and France was paralysed with consternation and
horror. One winter’s day, returning across Bourgogne, with a cold sleet
beating in his face and his cart-wheels half buried in the muddy road,
he met a carrier of his own village. The two compatriots shook hands,
and my father inquired whither the other was bound in this villainous
weather:
“I am for Paris, citizen,” replied the man, “taking there our church
bells and altar saints.”
“Accursed fellow,” cried my father, trembling with wrath and
indignation, and taking off his hat as he looked at the church relics.
“I suppose you think on your return they will make you a Deputy for this
devil’s work?”
The iconoclast skulked off with an oath and went on his way.
My father, I should observe, was profoundly religious. In the evening,
summer and winter, it was his custom to gather round him the household,
and kneeling on his chair, head uncovered and hands crossed, his white
hair in a queue tied with a black ribbon, he would pray and read the
gospels aloud to us.
My father read but three books in his life: the New Testament, the
“Imitation,” and “Don Quixote”; the latter he loved because it recalled
his campaign in Spain, and helped to pass the time when a rainy season
forced him indoors. In his youth schools were rare, and it was from a
poor pedlar, who made his rounds of the farms once a week, that my
father learnt his alphabet.
On Sunday after vespers, according to the old-time usage as head of the
house, he did the weekly accounts, debit and credit with annotations, in
a great volume called “Cartabèou.”
Whatever the weather, he was always content. When he heard grumbling,
either at tempestuous winds or torrential rains, “Good people,” he would
say, “the One above knows very well what He is about and also what we
need.... Supposing these great winds which revivify our Provence and
clear off the fogs and vapours of our marshes never blew? And if,
equally, we were never visited by the heavy rains which supply the wells
and springs and rivers? We need all sorts, my children.”
Though he would not scorn to pick up a faggot on the road and carry it
to the hearth, and though he was content with vegetables and brown bread
for his daily fare, and was so abstemious always as to mix water with
his wine, yet at his table the stranger never failed to find a welcome,
and his hand and purse were ever open to the poor.
Faithful to the old customs, the great festival of the year on our farm
was Christmas Eve. That day the labourers knocked off work early, and my
mother presented to each one, wrapped up in a cloth, a fine oil-cake, a
stick of nougat, a bunch of dried figs, a cream cheese, a salad of
celery, and a bottle of wine.
Then every man returned to his own village and home to burn the Yule
log. Only some poor fellow who had no home would remain at the farm, and
occasionally a poor relation, an old bachelor for example, would arrive
at night saying:
“A merry Christmas, cousin. I have come to help you burn the Yule log.”
Then, a merry company, we all sallied forth to fetch the log, which
according to tradition must be cut from a fruit-tree. Walking in line we
bore it home, headed by the oldest at one end, and I, the last born,
bringing up the rear. Three times we made the tour of the kitchen, then,
arrived at the flagstones of the hearth, my father solemnly poured over
the log a glass of wine, with the dedicatory words:
“Joy, joy. May God shower joy upon us, my dear children. Christmas
brings us all good things. God give us grace to see the New Year, and if
we do not increase in numbers may we at all events not decrease.”
In chorus, we responded:
“Joy, joy, joy!” and lifted the log on the fire-dogs. Then as the first
flame leapt up my father would cross himself, saying, “Burn the log, O
fire,” and with that we all sat down to the table.
Oh, that happy table, blessed in the truest sense, peace and joy in
every heart of the united family assembled round it. In the place of the
ordinary lamp suspended from the ceiling, on this occasion we lit the
three traditional candles, regarded by the company not without anxiety,
lest the wick should turn towards any one--always a bad augury. At each
end of the table sprouted some corn in a plate of water, set to
germinate on St. Barbara’s Day, and on the triple linen tablecloths[3]
were placed the customary dishes, snails in their shells, fried slices
of cod and grey mullet garnished with olives, cardoon, scholium,
peppered celery, besides a variety of sweetmeats reserved for this
feast, such as hearth-cakes, dried raisins, almond nougat, tomatoes, and
then, most important of all, the big Christmas loaf, which is never
partaken of until one-quarter has been bestowed on the first passing
beggar.
During the long evening which followed before starting out for the
midnight Mass, gathered round the log fire we told tales of past days
and recalled the grand old folks who were gone, and little by little my
worthy father never failed to come back to his favourite Spanish wars
and the famous siege of Figuières.
On New Year’s Day, again, our home was the centre of hospitality, and we
were greeted at early dawn by a crowd of our poorer neighbours, old
people, women and children, who came round the farm-house singing their
good wishes for the coming year. My father and mother, with kindly
response, presented to each one a gift of two long loaves and two round
ones. To all the poor of the village we also gave, in accordance with
the tradition of our house, two batches of bread.
Every evening my father included this formula in his evening prayer:
Did I live a hundred years
A hundred years I would bake,
And a hundred years give to the poor.
At his funeral the poor who mourned him said with fervour: “May he have
as many angels to bear him to Paradise as he gave us loaves of bread.”
This is a picture of the simple and noble patriarchal life of Provence
in my youth.