AT ST. MICHEL DE FRIGOLET
When my parents found that my whole heart was set upon play and that
nothing could keep me from idling away the livelong day in the fields
with the village boys, they came to the stern resolve to send me away to
a boarding-school.
So one morning a small folding-bed, a deal box to hold my papers,
together with a bristly pigskin trunk containing my books and
belongings, were placed in the farm cart, and I departed with a heavy
heart, accompanied by my mother to console me, and followed by our big
dog “Le Juif,” for St. Michel de Frigolet.
It was an old monastery, situated in the Montagnette, about two hours’
distance from the farm, between Graveson, Tarascon, and Barbentane. At
the Revolution the property of Saint-Michel had been sold for a little
paper money, and the deserted monastery, spoiled of its goods,
uninhabited and solitary, remained desolate up there in the midst of the
wilds, open to the four winds and to the wild beasts. Occasionally
smugglers used it as a powder factory; shepherds as a shelter for their
sheep in the rain; or gamblers from neighbouring towns--Graveson,
Maillane, Barbentane, Château-Renard--resorted there to hide and to
escape the police. And there, by the light of a few pale candles, while
gold pieces clinked to the shuffling of cards, oaths and blasphemies
echoed under the arches where so recently psalms had been raised. Their
game finished, the libertines then ate, drank and made merry until dawn.
About the year 1832 some mendicant friars established themselves there.
They replaced the bell in the old Roman tower, and on Sunday they set it
ringing.
But they rang in vain, no one mounted the hill for the services, for no
one had faith in them. And the Duchesse De Berry, having just at this
time come to Provence to incite the Carlists against the King,
Louis-Philippe, I remember that it was whispered that these fugitive
brothers, under their black gabardines, were in reality nothing but
soldiers (or bandits) plotting for some doubtful intrigue.
It was after the departure of these brothers that a worthy native of
Cavaillon, by name Monsieur Donnat, bought the Convent of Saint-Michel
on credit and started there a school for boys.
He was an old bachelor, yellow and swarthy in face, with lank hair, flat
nose, a large mouth, and big teeth. He wore a long black frock-coat and
bronzed shoes. Very devout he was and as poor as a church mouse, but he
devised a means for starting his school and collecting pupils without a
penny in his purse.
For example, he would go to Graveson, Tarascon, Barbentane, or
Saint-Pierre looking up the farmer who had sons.
“I wish to tell you,” he would begin, “that I have opened a school at
St. Michel de Frigolet. You have now, at your door, an excellent
institution for instructing your boys and helping them to pass their
examinations.”
“That is all very fine for rich people, sir,” the father of the family
would answer, “but we are poor folk, and can’t afford all that education
for our boys. They can always learn enough at home to work on the land.”
“Look here,” says Monsieur Donnat, “there is nothing better than a good
education. You need not worry about payment. You will give me every year
so many loads of wheat and so many barrels of wine or casks of oil--in
that way we will arrange matters.”
The good farmer gladly agreed his boy should go to St. Michel de
Frigolet. Monsieur Donnat then went on to a shopkeeper and began in this
wise:
“A fine little boy that is of yours!--and he looks wide awake too! Now
you don’t want to make a pounder of pepper of him, do you?”
“Ah, sir, if we could we would give him a little education, but colleges
are so expensive, and when one isn’t rich----”
“Are you on the look-out for a college?” exclaimed Monsieur Donnat.
“Why, send him to my school, up there at Saint-Michel, we will teach him
a little Latin and make a man of him! And--as to payment, we will take
toll of the shop. You will have in me another customer, and a good
customer, I can tell you!”
And without further question the shopkeeper confided his son to Monsieur
Donnat.
In this way Monsieur Donnat gathered into his school some forty small
boys of the neighbourhood, myself among them. Out of the number, some
parents, like my own, paid in money, but quite three-fourths paid in
kind--provisions, goods, or their labour. In one word, Monsieur Donnat,
before the Republic, social and democratic, had easily, and without any
hubbub, solved the problem of the Bank of Exchange, a measure which the
famous Proudhon in 1848 preached in vain.
One of the scholars I remember well. I think he was from Nîmes, and we
called him Agnel; he was rather like a girl, gentle and pretty, with
something sad in his look. Our parents came often to see us and brought
us cakes and other good things. But Agnel appeared to have no relations,
no one came to see him and he never spoke of those belonging to him.
Only on one occasion had a tall strange gentleman of haughty and
mysterious aspect appeared at the convent and inquired for Agnel. The
interview, which was private, had lasted for about half an hour, after
which the tall gentleman had departed and never reappeared. This gave
rise to the conjecture that Agnel was a child of superior though
illegitimate birth, being brought up in hiding at Saint-Michel. I lost
sight of him completely on leaving.
Our instructors consisted, to begin with, of our master, the worthy
Monsieur Donnat, who, when at home, took the lower classes, but half the
time he was away gleaning pupils. Then there were two or three poor
devils, old seminarists, who, having thrown cap and gown to the winds,
were well content to earn a few crowns, besides being well housed, fed
and washed; we boasted also a priestling, Monsieur Talon by name, who
said Mass for us; and, finally, a little hunchback, Monsieur Lavagne,
the professor of music. For our cook we had a negro, and to wait at
table and do the washing a woman of Tarascon, some thirty years old. To
complete this happy family there were the worthy parents of Monsieur
Donnat--the father, poor old chap, coifed in a red cap, and assisted by
the donkey, was employed to fetch the provisions; and the old
white-capped dame acted as barber to us, when necessary.
In those days Saint-Michel was of much less importance than it has since
become. There existed merely the cloisters of the old Augustine monks
with the little green in the middle, while to the south in a small group
rose the refectory, chapter-house, kitchen, stables, and lastly, the
dilapidated Church of Saint-Michel. The walls of the latter were covered
with frescoes representing a flaming fiery hell of damned souls, and
demons armed with pitch-forks, taking active part in the deadly combat
between the devil and the great archangel.
Outside this cluster of buildings stood a small buttressed chapel
dedicated to Our Lady of Succour, with a porch at the side. Great tufts
of ivy covered the walls, and inside it was decorated with rich gildings
enclosing pictures, attributed to Mignard, representing the Life of the
Virgin. Queen Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV., had so adorned the
chapel, in accordance with a vow made to the Virgin should she become
the mother of a son.
During the Revolution, this chapel, a real gem hidden among the
mountains, had been saved by the good country people, who piled up
faggots in front of the porch, so hiding the entrance. Here it was that
every morning, at five o’clock in summer and six in winter, we were
taken to hear Mass, and here it was that with faith, a real angelic
faith, I prayed--we all prayed. Here also, on Sundays, we sang Mass and
vespers, each one prayer-book in hand; and here, on the great
feast-days, the country people came to admire the voice of the little
Frédéric; for I had, at that age, a pretty clear voice like a girl’s. At
the Elevation, when we sang motets, it was I who had the solos, and I
well remember one in which I specially distinguished myself commencing
with these words:
O mystery incomprehensible,
Great God Thou art not loved.
In front of the little chapel grew some nettle-trees, the sweet blossoms
of which, hanging in tempting clusters, often lured us to climb the
branches, to the destruction of our garments. There was also a well,
bored and cut in the rock, which, by a subterranean outlet, poured its
waters down into a basin, and, descending further, watered the kitchen
garden. Below the garden, at the entrance of the valley, grew a clump of
white poplars, brightening up the rather barren landscape.
For Saint-Michel was a wild solitary spot, the old monastery being built
on a plateau in a narrow passage between the mountains, far from the
haunts of men, as the inscription over the entrance truly testified:
“I fled from the cities, where injustice and
vanity reign unchecked, and sought for solitude.
This is the place I have chosen for my habitation.
Here shall I find rest.”
The spurs of the mountains around were covered with thyme, rosemary,
asphodel, box and lavender. In some protected corners grew vines, which
produced, strange to say, a vintage of some renown--the famous wine of
Frigolet. A few olive-trees were planted on the spur of the hills, and
here and there in the broken stony ground, rows of almond-trees,
tortuous, rugged and stunted. In the clefts of the rocks might be seen
occasional wild fig-trees. This was all the vegetation these rocky hills
could show, the rest was only waste land and crushed boulders. But how
good it smelt, this odour of the mountains, how intoxicating as we drank
it in at sunrise!
The generality of schoolboys are penned up in big cold courtyards
between four walls, but we had the mountains for our playground. On
Thursdays, and every day at recreation hours, no sooner were we let out
than we were off like partridges, over valley and mountain, until the
convent bell rang out the recall. No danger of our suffering from
dulness. In the glorious summer sunshine the ortolan sang afar his “Tsi
tsi béau”; and we rolled in the sweet thyme or roamed in search of
forgotten almonds and green grapes left on the vines. We gathered
mushrooms, set traps for the birds, searched the ravines for those
fossils called in all that countryside “Saint Stephen’s stones,” hunted
in the grottos for the Golden Goat, and climbed and tumbled about till
our parents found it hardly possible to keep us decently clothed or
shod.
Ragged and tattered as a troop of young gypsies, how we revelled in that
wonderful country of mountains, gorges, and ravines, with their superb
Provençal names, so sonorous and characteristic, they seem to bear the
impress of the genius of the people. The “Mourre de la Nur,” from whose
summit one could see the white coast-line of the Mediterranean, and
where at sunset on Saint John’s day we lit the bonfires; the Baume de
l’Argent, where formerly they made counterfeit coin; the Roque Pied de
Bœuf, on which was the mark of a bull’s hoof; and the Roque d’Acier,
dominating the Rhône, with its boats and rafts as they float down the
stream: national monuments these, of our land and our language, sweet
with the scent of thyme, rosemary and lavender, glowing with colours of
gold and azure. O Land where Nature smiles so divinely, what dreams of
delight thou didst reveal to my childhood!
But to return to Saint-Michel. We had, as I have said, a certain
chaplain, Monsieur Talon, a little abbé from Avignon. He was short,
stout, with a rubicund visage like a beggar’s water-gourd. The
Archbishop of Avignon had deprived him of his benefice because he was
somewhat given to tippling, and sent him to us to be out of the way.
One Saint’s day--a Thursday--we had all been taken over to a
neighbouring village, Boulbon, to march in the procession--the big boys
swung incense, the little ones scattered flowers, while Monsieur Talon
was invited, most imprudently alas! to be the officiating priest.
All the town turned out; men, women, and girls lined the streets, gaily
decorated with flags and bunting. The confraternities waved their
banners, the fresh voices of the white-robed choristers intoned the
Canticles, and with devout heads bowed before the Host; we swung our
censers and strewed our flowers, when all at once a murmur ran through
the crowd, and, great heavens! down the centre of the street with the
Host in his hands, the golden cope on his back, came poor Monsieur Talon
swaying like a pendulum.
He had dined at the presbytery, and had no doubt been pressed to too
much of that good vintage of Frigolet, which mounts so quickly to the
head. The unhappy man, red as much from shame as from the wine, could
not hold himself straight. Supported by the deacon and sub-deacon, one
on each side, he entered the church with the procession. But finding
himself before the altar, Monsieur Talon could say nothing save,
“Oremus, oremus, oremus,” and finally they were obliged to remove him to
the sacristy.
The scandal this caused may be imagined! Less, however, in that
particular district than elsewhere, for all this took place in a parish
where the “divine bottle” still celebrates its rites, as in the days of
Bacchus. Near Boulbon, in the mountains, stands an old chapel dedicated
to Saint-Marcellin, and on the first day of June the men of Boulbon go
there in procession, each carrying a bottle of wine.
Women are not allowed to take part in this ceremony for, according to
the Roman tradition, our women formerly drank nothing but water, and to
reconcile the young girls to this ancient _régime_ they were told, and
are still told, that water is good for the complexion.
The Abbé Talon never failed to escort us every year to the Procession of
Bottles. Having taken our places in the chapel, the Curé of Boulbon,
turning to the congregation, would say:
“My brethren--uncork your bottles, and let there be silence for the
benediction.”
Then, having donned a red cope, he solemnly chanted the prescribed
formula for the benediction of the wine, and after saying “Amen,” we all
made the sign of the cross and took a pull at our bottles. The curé and
the mayor, after clinking glasses religiously on the steps of the altar,
also drank. On the morrow, when the fête was over, if there happened to
be a drought at the time, the bust of Saint-Marcellin was borne in a
procession through all the country-side, for the Boulbonnais declare
that good Saint-Marcellin blesses both wine and water.
Another pilgrimage, also of a festive nature, and now quite gone out of
fashion, was that of Saint-Anthime. It took place at Montagnette, and
was got up by the people of Graveson, when there happened to be a
scarcity of rain.
Intoning their litanies and followed by a crowd of people, their heads
covered with sacks, the priests would carry Saint-Anthime, a highly
coloured bust with prominent eyes, beard, and mitre, to the Church of
Saint-Michel, and there the whole blessed day, the provisions spread out
on the fragrant grass, they would await the rain, and devoutly drink the
wine of Frigolet. And I can stake my word that, more than once, the
return journey was made in a flood of rain; this may have been owing to
the hymns, for our forefathers had a saying that, “Singing brings the
rain.”
If, however, Saint-Anthime, in spite of litanies and pious libations,
did not manage to collect the clouds, then the jolly penitents, on their
return to Graveson, would punish him for his lack of power by plunging
him three times in the brook of Lones. This curious custom of dipping
the images of saints in water, to compel them to send rain, prevailed
in many districts, at Toulouse, for instance, and I have heard of it
even in Portugal.
Our mothers never failed to take us in our childhood to the church at
Graveson, there to show us Saint-Anthime and also Béluget, a
Jack-of-the-Clock, who struck the hours in the belfry.
In concluding my experiences at Saint-Michel, I recollect, in a
dreamlike fashion, that towards the end of my first year, just before
the holidays, we played a comedy called _The Children of Edward_, by
Casimir Delavigne. To me was allotted the part of a young princess, and
my mother supplied me for the occasion with a muslin dress which she
borrowed from a little girl of our neighbourhood. This white dress was,
later, the cause of a pretty little romance, which I will tell further
on.
In the second year of my schooling, having begun to learn Latin, I wrote
to my parents to send me some books, and a few days after, looking down
into the valley, behold I saw mounting the path to the convent, my
father astride on Babache, the good old mule of thirty years’ service,
well known at all the market towns around. For my father always rode
Babache, whether to the market, or going the round of his fields with
the long weeding-fork, which he used from his saddle, cutting down the
thistles and weeds.
Upon reaching the convent, my father emptied an enormous sack which he
had brought with him on his saddle.
“See, Frédéric,” he called, “I have brought thee a few books and some
paper!”
Therewith he pulled from the sack, one after the other, four or five
dictionaries bound in parchment, a mass of paper books--“Epitome,” “De
Viris Illustribus,” “Selecta Historiæ,” “Conciones,” &c.--a huge bottle
of ink, a bundle of goose quills, and enough writing paper to last me
seven years, to the end of my school time in fact. It was from Monsieur
Aubanel, printer at Avignon, and father of the future famous and beloved
Félibre, at that time unknown to me, that my worthy parent had with such
promptness made this provision for my education.
At our pleasant monastery of St. Michel de Frigolet, however, I had no
leisure to use much writing material. Monsieur Donnat, our master, for
one reason or another, was seldom at his own establishment, and, as the
proverb truly says, “When the cat is away, the mice will play.” The
masters, badly paid, had always some excuse for cutting short the
lesson, and when the parents visited the school, there was often no one
to be seen. On their inquiring for the boys, some of us would be found
actively engaged in repairing the stone wall which upheld a slanting
field, while others would be among the vines revelling in the discovery
of forgotten little bunches of grapes or mushrooms. Unfortunately, these
circumstances did not conduce to much confidence in our headmaster.
Another thing which contributed to the decline of the school was that,
in order to increase the numbers, poor Monsieur Donnat took pupils who
paid little or nothing, and these were not the boys who ate least.
The end came at last in a characteristic manner. We had, as I have said,
a negro as cook, and one fine day this individual, without warning,
packed his box and disappeared. This was the signal for a general
disbanding. No cook meant no broth for us, and the professors one by one
left us in the lurch. Monsieur Donnat was, as usual, absent. His mother,
poor old soul, tried her hand for a day or two at boiling potatoes, but
one morning the old father Donnat told us sadly: “My children, there are
no more potatoes to boil--you had better all go home!”
And at once, like a flock of kids let loose from the fold, we ran off to
gather tufts of thyme from the hills to carry away as a remembrance of
this beautiful and beloved country--for Frigolet signifies in the
Provençal tongue a place where thyme abounds.
Then, shouldering our little bundles, by twos and threes we scattered
over the valleys and hills, some up, some down, but none of us without
many a backward look and sigh of regret at departing.
Poor Monsieur Donnat! After all his efforts in every direction to make
his school a success, he ended his days, alas! in the almshouse.
But before taking leave of St. Michel de Frigolet, I must add one word
as to what became of the old monastery. After being abandoned for twelve
years it was bought by a White Monk, Father Edmond. In 1854 he restored
it under the Law of Saint-Norbert, the Order of Prémontré, which had
ceased to exist in France. Thanks to the activity, the preaching and
collecting of this zealous missioner, the little monastery fast grew
into importance. Numerous buildings, crowned with embattled walls, were
added; a new church, magnificently ornamented, raised its three naves,
surmounted by a couple of big clock-towers. A hundred monks or lay
brothers peopled the cells, and every Sunday all the neighbourhood
mounted the hillside to witness the pomp of the High Mass. In 1880 the
Abbot of the White Brothers had become so popular that upon the
Republic ordering the closing of the convents, over a thousand peasants
came up from the plain and shut themselves in the monastery to protest
in person against the radical decree. And it was then that we saw a
whole army in marching order--cavalry, infantry, generals and captains,
with baggage waggons and all the apparatus of war--camping around the
monastery of St. Michel de Frigolet, seriously going through this
comic-opera siege, which four or five policemen, had they chosen, could
easily have brought to a termination.
Every morning during this siege, which lasted a week, the country
people, taking their provisions, posted themselves on the hills and
spurs of the mountains which dominated the monastery, and watched from
afar the progress of events. The prettiest sight I well remember was the
girls from Barbentane, Boulbon, Saint-Rémy, and Maillane, encouraging
the besieged with enthusiastic singing and waving of kerchiefs:
Catholic and Provençal,
Our faith shall know no fear.
With ardour let us cheer,
Catholic and Provençal.
This was alternated with invectives, jokes, and hootings addressed to
the officers, as the latter marched past with fierce aspect. Excepting
only the genuine indignation aroused by the injustice of these
proceedings in every heart, it would be hard to find a more burlesque
siege than this of Frigolet, which furnished the subject of Sinnibaldi
Doria’s “Siege of Caderousse,” and also a heroic poem by the Abbé Faire,
neither of them half as comic as the original. Alphonse Daudet, who had
already written of the convent of the White Brothers in his story “The
Elixir of Brother Gaucher,” also gave us, in his last romance on
Tarascon, the hero Tartarin valiantly joining the besieged in the
Convent of Saint-Michel.