JOURNEY TO LES SAINTES-MARIES
All my life I had heard of the Camargue and of Les Saintes-Maries and
the pilgrimage to their shrine, but I had never as yet been there. In
the spring of the year 1855 I wrote to my friend Mathieu, ever ready for
a little trip, and proposed we should go together and visit the saints.
He agreed gladly, and we met at Beaucaire in the Condamine quarter, from
where a pilgrim party annually started on May 24 to the sea-coast
village of Les Saintes-Maries.
A little after midnight Mathieu and I set forth with a crowd of country
men and women, young girls and children, packed into waggons close as
sardines in a tin; we numbered fourteen in our conveyance.
Our worthy charioteer, one of those typical Provenceaux whom nothing
dismays, seated us on the shaft, our legs dangling. Half the time he
walked by the side of his horse, the whip round his neck, constantly
relighting his pipe. When he wanted a rest he sat on a small seat niched
in between the wheels, which the drivers call “carrier of the weary.”
Just behind me, enveloped in her woollen wrap and stretched on a
mattress by her mother’s side, her feet planted unconcernedly in my
back, was a young girl named Alarde. Not having, however, as yet made
the acquaintance of these near neighbours, Mathieu and I conversed with
the driver, who at once inquired from whence we hailed. On our replying
from Maillane, he remarked that he had already guessed by our speech
that we had not travelled far.
“The Maillane drivers,” he added, “‘upset on a flat plain’; you know
that saying?”
“Not all of them,” we laughed.
“’Tis but a jest,” he answered. “Why there was one I knew, a carter of
Maillane, who was equipped, I give you my word, like Saint George
himself--Ortolan, his name was.”
“Was that many years ago?” I asked.
“Aye, sirs, I am speaking of the good old days of the wheel, before
those devourers with their railroads had come and ruined us all: the
days when the fair of Beaucaire was in its splendour, and the first
barge which arrived for the fair was awarded the finest sheep in the
market, and the victorious bargeman used to hang the sheep-skin as a
trophy on the main-mast. Those were the days in which the towing-horses
were insufficient to tug up the Rhône the piles of merchandise which
were sold at the fair of Beaucaire, and every man who drove a waggon,
carriage, cart, or van was cracking his whip along the high roads from
Marseilles to Paris, and from Paris to Lille, right away into Flanders.
Ah, you are too young to remember that time.”
Once launched on his pet theme Lamoureux discoursed, as he tramped
along, till the light of the moon waned and gave place to dawn. Even
then the worthy charioteer would have continued his reminiscences had it
not been that, as the rays of the awakening sun lit up the wide
stretches of the great plains of the Camargue lying between the delta of
the two Rhônes, we arrived at the Bridge of Forks.
In our eyes, even a more beautiful sight than the rising sun (we were
both about five and twenty) was the awakening maiden who, as I have
mentioned already, had been packed in just behind us with her mother.
Shaking off the hood of her cloak, she emerged all smiling and fresh,
like a goddess of youth. A dark red ribbon caught up her blonde hair
which escaped from the white coif. With her delicate clear skin, curved
lips half opened in a rapt smile, she looked like a flower shaking off
the morning dew. We greeted her cordially, but Mademoiselle Alarde paid
no attention to us. Turning to her mother she inquired anxiously:
“Mother, say--are we still far from the great saints?”
“My daughter, we are still, I should say, eighteen or twenty miles
distant.”
“Will he be there, my betrothed?--say then--will he be there?” she asked
her mother.
“Oh hush, my darling,” answered the mother quickly.
“Ah, how slowly the time goes,” sighed the young girl. Then discovering
all at once that she was ravenously hungry, she suggested breakfast.
Spreading a linen cloth on her knees, she and her mother thereupon
brought out of a wicker basket a quantity of provisions--bread, sausage,
dates, figs, oranges--and, without further ceremony, set to work. We
wished them “good appetite,” whereupon the young girl very charmingly
invited us to join them, which we did on condition that we contributed
the contents of our knapsacks to the repast. Mathieu at once produced
two bottles of good Nerthe wine, which, having uncorked, we poured into
a cup and handed round to each of the party in turn, including the
driver; so behold us a happy family.
At the first halt Mathieu and I got down to stretch our legs. We
inquired of our friend Lamoureux who the young girl might be. He
answered that hers was a sad story. One of the prettiest girls in
Beaucaire, she had been jilted about three months ago by her betrothed,
who had gone off to another girl, rich, but ugly as sin. The effect of
this had been to send Alarde almost out of her mind; the beautiful girl
was in fact not quite sane, declared Lamoureux, though to look at her
one would never guess it. The poor mother, at her wits’ end to know what
to do, was taking her child to Les Saintes-Maries to see if that would
divert her mind and perhaps cure her.
We expressed our astonishment that any man could be such a scoundrel as
to forsake a young girl so lovely and sweet-looking.
Arrived at the Jasses d’Albaron, we halted to let the horses have a feed
from their nose-bags. The young girls of Beaucaire who were with us took
this opportunity of surrounding Alarde, and singing a roundel in her
honour:
Au branle de ma tante
Le rossignol y chante
Oh que de roses! Oh que de fleurs
Belle, belle Alarde tournez vous.
La belle s’est tournée,
Son beau l’a regardé:
Oh que de roses! Oh que de fleurs.
Belle, belle Alarde, embrassez vous.
But the result of this well-meant attention was very disastrous, for the
poor Alarde burst out into hysterical laughter, crying, “My lover, my
lover,” as though she were demented.
Soon after, however, we resumed our journey, for the sky, which since
dawn had been flecked with clouds, became every moment more threatening.
The wind blew straight from the sea, sweeping the black masses of cloud
towards us till all the blue sky was obliterated. The frogs and toads
croaked in the marshes, and our long procession of waggons struggled
slowly through the vast salt plains of the Camargue. The earth felt the
coming storm. Flights of wild ducks and teal passed with a warning cry
over our heads. The women looked anxiously at the black sky. “We shall
be in a nice plight if that storm takes us in the middle of the
Camargue,” said they.
“Well, you must put your skirts over your heads,” laughed Lamoureux. “It
is a known fact that such clouds bring rain.”
We passed a mounted bull-driver, his trident in his hand, collecting
his scattered beasts. “You’ll get wet,” he prophesied cheerfully.
A drizzle commenced; then larger drops announced that the water was
going to fall in good earnest. In no time the wide plain was converted
into a watery waste. Seated beneath the awning of the waggon, we saw in
the distance troops of the Camargue horses shaking their long manes and
tails as they started off briskly for the rising grounds and the
sandbanks.
Down came the rain! The road, drowned in the deluge, became
impracticable. The wheels got clogged, the beasts were unable to drag us
further. Far as the eye could reach there was nothing to be seen but one
vast lake.
“All must get down!” cried the drivers unanimously. “Women and girls
too, if you do not wish to sleep beneath the tamarisk-bush.”
“Walk in the water?” cried some in dismay.
“Walk barefoot, my dears,” answered Lamoureux; “thus you will earn the
great pardon of which you all have need, for I know the sins of some of
you are weighing devilish heavy.”
Old and young, women and girls, all got down, and with laughter and
shrieks, every one began to prepare themselves for wading, taking off
their shoes and tucking up their clothes. The drivers took the children
astride on their shoulders, and Mathieu gallantly offered himself to the
old lady in our waggon, the mother of the pretty Alarde:
“If you mount on my back,” he said, “I will undertake to carry you
safely to the ‘Dead Goat.’” The old lady, who was so fat she walked with
difficulty even on dry ground, did not refuse such a noble offer.
“You, my Frédéric, can charge yourself with Alarde,” said Mathieu with a
wink to me, “and we will change from time to time to refresh ourselves,
eh?”
And forthwith we each took up our burden without further ceremony, an
example which was soon followed by all the young men in the other
waggons.
Mathieu and his old girl laughed like fools. As for myself, when I felt
the soft round arms of Alarde round my neck as she held the umbrella
over our heads, I own it to this day, I would not have given up that
journey across the Camargue in the rain and slush for a king’s ransom.
“Oh goodness, if my betrothed could see me now,” repeated Alarde at
intervals; “my betrothed, who no longer loves me--my boy, my handsome
boy!”
It was in vain that I tried to steal in with my little compliments and
soft speeches, she neither heard nor saw me--but I could feel her breath
on my neck and shoulder; I had only to turn my head a little and I could
have kissed her, her hair brushed against mine; the close proximity of
this youth and freshness bewitched me, and while she dreamt only of her
lover, I, for my part, tried to imagine myself a second Paul carrying my
Virginia.
Just at the happiest moment of my illusion, Mathieu, gasping beneath the
weight of the fat mamma, cried out:
“Let us change for a bit! I can go no further, my dear fellow.”
At the trunk of a tamarisk, therefore, we halted and exchanged burdens,
Mathieu taking the daughter, while I, alas, had the mother. And thus for
over two miles, paddling in water up to our knees, we travelled,
changing at intervals and making light of fatigue because of the reward
we both got out of the romantic _rôle_ of Paul!
At last the heavy rain began to abate, the sky to clear and the roads to
become visible. We remounted the waggons, and about four o’clock in the
afternoon, suddenly we saw rise out of the distant blue of sea and sky,
with its Roman belfry, russet merlons and buttresses, the church of Les
Saintes-Maries.
There was a general exclamation of joyful greeting to the great saints,
for this far-away shrine, standing isolated on the edge of the great
plain, is the Mecca of all the Gulf of Lyons. What impresses one most is
the harmonious grandeur of the vast sweep of land and sea, arched over
by the limitless dome of sky, which, more perfectly here than anywhere
else, appears to embrace the entire terrestrial horizon.
Lamoureux turned to us saying: “We shall just arrive in time to perform
the office of lowering the shrines; for, gentlemen, you must know that
it is we of Beaucaire to whom is reserved the right before all others of
turning the crane by which the relics of the saints are lowered.”
The sacred remains of Mary, mother of James the Less, Mary Salome,
mother of James and John, and of Sarah, their servant, are kept in a
small chapel high up just under the dome. From this elevated position,
by means of an aperture which gives on to the church, the shrines are
slowly lowered by a rope over the heads of the worshipping crowd.
So soon as we had unharnessed, which we did on the sandbanks covered
with tamarisk and orach by which the village is surrounded, we made our
way quickly to the church.
“Light them up well, the dear blessed saints,” cried a group of
Montpellier women selling candles and tapers, medals and images at the
church door.
The church was crammed with people of all kinds, from Languedoc, from
Arles, the maimed and the halt, together with a crowd of gypsies, all
one on the top of the other. The gypsies buy bigger candles than anybody
else, but devote their attention exclusively to Saint Sarah, who,
according to their belief, was one of their nation. It is here at Les
Saintes-Maries that these wandering tribes hold their annual assemblies,
and from time to time elect their queen.
It was difficult to get in at the church. A group of market women from
Nîmes, muffled up in black and dragging after them their twill cushions
whereon to sleep all night in the church, were quarrelling for the
chairs. “I had this before you.”--“No, but I hired it,” &c. A priest was
passing “The Sacred Arm” from one to the other to be kissed; to the sick
people they were giving glasses of briny water drawn from the saints’
well in the middle of the nave, and which on that day they say becomes
sweet. Some, by way of a remedy, were scraping the dust off an ancient
marble block fixed in the wall, and reported to be the “saints’
pillow.” A smell of burning tapers, incense, heat and stuffiness
suffocated one, while one’s ears were deafened by each group singing
their own particular canticles at the pitch of their voices.
Then in the air, slowly the shrines begin to descend, and the crowd
bursts into shouts and cries of “O great Saint Marys!” And as the cord
unrolls, screams and contortions increase, arms are raised, faces
upturned, every one awaits a miracle. Suddenly, from the end of the
church, rushing across the nave, as though she had wings, a beautiful
girl, her fair hair falling about her, flung herself towards the
floating shrines, crying: “O great saints--in pity give me back the love
of my betrothed.”
All rose to their feet. “It is Alarde!” exclaimed the people from
Beaucaire, while the rest murmured awestruck, “It is Saint Mary Magdalen
come to visit her sisters.” Every one wept with emotion.
The following day took place the procession on the sea-shore to the soft
murmur and splash of the breaking waves. In the distance, on the high
seas, two or three ships tacked about as though coming in, while all
along the coast extended the long procession, ever seeming to lengthen
out with the moving line of the waves.
It was just here, says the legend,[13] that the three Saint Marys in
their skiff were cast ashore in Provence after the death of Our Lord.
And looking out over the wide glistening sea, that lies in the midst of
such visions and memories, illuminated by the radiant sunshine, it
seemed to us in truth we were on the threshold of Paradise.
Our little friend Alarde, looking rather pale after the emotions of the
previous day, was one of a group of maidens chosen to bear on their
shoulders the “Boat of the Saints,” and many murmurs of sympathy
followed her as she passed. This was the last we saw of her, for, so
soon as the saints had reascended to their chapel, we took the omnibus
for Aigues-Mortes, together with a crowd of people returning to
Montpellier and Lundy, who beguiled the way by singing in chorus hymns
to the Saints of the Sea.
STANZAS FROM “MIREILLE”[14]
The sisters and the brothers, we
Who followed him ever constantly,
To the raging sea were cruelly driven
In a crazy ship without a sail,
Without an oar, ’mid the angry gale;
We women could only weep and wail--
The men uplifted their eyes to Heaven!
A gust tempestuous drives the ship
O’er fearsome waves, in the wild storm’s grip;
Martial and Saturninus, lowly
In prayer kneel yonder on the prow;
Old Trophimus with thoughtful brow
Sits closely wrapped in his mantle now
By Maximus, the Bishop holy.
There on the deck, amid the gloom,
Stands Lazarus, of shroud and tomb
Always the mortal pallor keeping;
His glance the raging gulf defies;
And with the doomed ship onward flies
Martha his sister; there, too, lies
Magdalen, o’er her sorrows weeping.
Upon a smooth and rockless strand
Alleluiah! our ship doth land.
Prostrate we fall on the wet sand, crying:
“Our lives, that He from storm did save,
Here are they ready, Death to brave,
And preach the law that once He gave,
O Christ, we swear it, even dying!”
At that glad name, most glorious still,
Noble Provence seemed all a-thrill;
Forest and moor throughout their being
Were stirred and answered that new cry;
As when a dog, his master nigh,
Goes out to meet him joyfully,
And welcome gives, the master seeing.
The sea some shells to shore had cast ...
Thou gav’st a feast to our long fast--
_Our Father, Thou who art in Heaven;_
And for our thirst, a fountain clear
Rose limpid ’mid the sea-plants here;
And, marvellous, still rises near
The church where we were burial given.
(Trans. Alma Strettell.)