IV
“Sur le pont d’Avignon
Tout le monde danse, danse;
Sur le pont d’Avignon
Tout le monde danse en rond.”
Many generations of children have doubtless wondered why. Make an effort to cross the Rhone when the wind is blowing, and you will arrive, at any rate, at one explanation. O masterly wind! Vent magistral, or mistral. With what a round, boisterous, over-mastering force you blow from the north-west! How you send the poor passengers of Avignon-bridge whirling in all directions, dancing to all tunes, battling comically and ineffectually against you! Men used to say that beautiful Provence were a Paradise, had it not suffered from three scourges: the Parliament, the Durance and the Mistral. The local Parliament exists no more (and we regret it), the Durance is no longer a curse, but a blessing, and serves to irrigate a thousand parched and fruitful southern fields. But the mistral remains. We ourselves were nearly blown from the hill-top at Villeneuve; yet I can cherish no rancour against the mistral, the tyrant, who sweeps us all out of his way as he rushes, wreathed in dust, towards the sea. ’Tis a good honest wind, like our west-country sou’-wester, and quite devoid of the sharp, thin, exasperating quality of the east wind of our isles. And, but for the mistral, they never would have planted those dark long screens of soaring cypress which streak so picturesquely the wide blue prospects of Provence.