THE POPE’S MULE
(LA MULE DU PAPE)
By Alphonse Daudet
Done into English by the Editor
Of all the pretty sayings, proverbs, or adages with which our Provence peasants embroider their discourse, I know none more picturesque or singular than this: within fifteen leagues around about my mill, whenever a person speaks of a spiteful, vindictive man, he says, “That man there—look out for him! He is like the Pope’s mule, who kept her kick in waiting for seven years.”
I hunted diligently for a long time to find out whence that proverb could have come, what was that papal mule, and that kick reserved throughout seven years. No one here has been able to inform me on this subject, not even Francet Mamaï, my fife player, though he has all the Provençal legends at his fingers’ ends. Francet thinks with me that it must be founded upon some old tradition of Provence; yet he has never heard it referred to except in this proverb.
“You will not find that anywhere but in the Library of the Grasshoppers,” said the old fifer to me, with a laugh.
The idea struck me as a good one, and since the Library of the Grasshoppers is at my door, I went and shut myself up there for a week.
It is a marvellous library, admirably equipped, open to poets day and night, and attended by little librarians who constantly make music for you with cymbals. There I passed some delicious days, and, after a week of research—on my back—I ended by discovering what I wished to know, that is to say, the history of my mule and of that famous kick saved up for seven years. The story is a pretty one, although a trifle naïve, and I am going to try to tell it you just as I read it yesterday morning in a sky-colored manuscript, which smelled delightfully of dry lavender, and had long gossamer threads for binding threads.
He who has never seen the Avignon of the time of the Popes, has seen nothing. For gayety, for life, for animation, for a succession of fêtes, there never was a city its equal. From morning till night there were processions and pilgrimages; streets strewn with flowers and hung with rich tapestries; cardinals arriving by the Rhône, banners flying, galleys bedecked with flags; papal soldiers chanting in Latin on the public squares; begging friars with their alms-rattles; then, in addition, from roof to cellar of the houses which swarmed humming around the great papal palace like bees about their hive, there were heard the tic-tac of the lace-makers’ looms, the flying of the shuttles weaving cloth-of-gold for vestments, the little hammers of the vase-sculptors, the keyboards being attuned at the lute-makers’, the songs of the warpers; and, overhead, the booming of the bells was heard, and always below sounded the tinkle of the tambourines on the river bank by the bridge. For with us, when the people are happy they must be dancing, dancing ever; and since in those days the streets in the city were too narrow for the farandole, fifers and tambourine players took up their post upon the Avignon Bridge, in the cool breezes of the Rhône, and day and night they danced and danced.... Ah! happy time, happy city, when halberds did not wound, and state prisons were used only for cooling wine! No famine; no wars! That shows the way the Popes of the Comtat[11] knew how to govern their people; that is why their people regretted them so deeply!
There was one Pope especially, a good old gentleman whom they called Boniface. Ah! how many tears were shed for him in Avignon when he died! He was such an amiable, affable prince! He would smile down at you so genially from his mule! And when you passed him—whether you were a poor little digger of madder or the grand provost of the city—he would give you his benediction so courteously! A genuine Pope of Yvetot was he, but of an Yvetot in Provence, with something sly in his laughter, a sprig of sweet marjoram in his cap—and not the semblance of a Jeanneton. The only Jeanneton the good Father had ever been known to have was his vineyard—a little vineyard which he had planted himself, three leagues from Avignon, among the myrtles of Château-Neuf.
Every Sunday, on going out from vespers, the worthy man went to pay his court to it, and when he was seated in the grateful sun, his mule close beside him, his cardinals stretched at the foot of the vine stocks all about, then he would order a flagon of wine of his own bottling—that exquisite, ruby-colored wine, which has been called ever since Château-Neuf of the Popes—and he would drink it appreciatively in little sips, and regard his vineyard with a tender air. Then—the flagon empty, the day closed—he would return joyously to the city, followed by all his chapter; and, after crossing the Bridge of Avignon, in the midst of drum-beats and farandoles, his mule, stirred by the music, took up a little skipping amble, while he himself marked the time of the dance with his cap—a thing which greatly scandalized his cardinals, but caused all the people to say, “Ah! that good prince! Ah! that fine old Pope!”
Next to his vineyard at Château-Neuf, the thing that the Pope loved best in the world was his mule. The good old man doted on that beast. Every evening before going to bed he went to see if her stable was well shut, if nothing was lacking in the manger; and he never rose from the table without having had prepared under his very eyes a huge bowl of wine à la Française, with plenty of sugar and spice, which he himself carried to the mule, despite the remarks of his cardinals. It must be admitted, however, that the animal was worth the trouble. She was a beautiful mule, black and dappled with red, glossy of coat, sure of foot, large and full of back, and carrying proudly her neat little head, all decked out with pompons, rosettes, silver bells, and bows of ribbon—all this with the mildness of an angel, a naïve eye, and two long ears, always in motion, which gave her the air of an amiable child. All Avignon respected her, and when she went through the streets there was no attention which she did not receive; for everyone knew that this was the best way to be in favor at court, and that, for all her innocent air, the Pope’s mule had led more than one to fortune—witness Tistet Védène and his prodigious adventure.
This Tistet Védène was, from the very first, an audacious young rascal whom his father, Guy Védène, the gold-carver, had been obliged to drive from home because he would not do anything, and demoralized the apprentices. For six months he could be seen trailing his jacket through all the gutters of Avignon, but especially around the papal palace, for this rascal had long had his eye fixed on the Pope’s mule, and you will see what a villainous scheme it was. One day when his Holiness was taking a walk all alone beneath the shadows of the ramparts with his steed, behold my Tistet approached and, clasping his hands with an air of admiration, said to him:
“Ah! mon Dieu! what a splendid mule you have there, Holy Father! Permit me to look at her a moment. Ah, my Pope, the emperor of Germany has not her equal!”
And he caressed her and spoke softly to her, as to a damsel.
“Come here, my jewel, my treasure, my fine pearl....”
And the good Pope, deeply moved, said to himself:
“What a good little fellow! How gentle he is with my mule!”
And do you know what happened the next day? Tistet Védène exchanged his old yellow jacket for a beautiful vestment of lace, a violet silk hood, and buckled shoes; and he entered the household of the Pope, where never before had any been received but sons of nobles and nephews of cardinals. There is an intrigue for you! But Tistet did not stop there.
Once in the service of the Pope, the rascal continued the game which had succeeded so well. Insolent with everyone else, he had nothing but attention, nothing but provident care for the mule; and one was always meeting him about the palace court with a handful of oats or a bunch of clover, whose rosy clusters he shook gently and glanced at the balcony of Saint Peter as if to say: “Ha! for whom is this?” And so it went on until the good Pope, who felt that he was growing old, ended by leaving it to him to watch over the stable and to carry to the mule her bowl of wine à la Française—which was no laughing matter for the cardinals.
No more was it for the mule—it did not make her laugh. Now, at the hour for her wine, she always saw coming to her stable five or six little clerks of the household, who hastily buried themselves in the straw with their hoods and their laces; then, after a moment, a delicious warm odor of caramel and spices filled the stable, and Tistet Védène appeared carefully carrying the bowl of wine à la Française. Then the martyrdom of the poor beast began.
That perfumed wine which she loved so well, which kept her warm, which gave her wings, they had the cruelty to place before her, there in her manger, and let her sniff it; then, when she had her nostrils full of it, it was gone—that lovely rose-flamed liquor all went down the gullets of those good-for-nothings. And yet if they had only stopped at taking her wine; but they were like devils, all these little clerks, when they had drunken. One pulled her ears, another her tail; Quinquet mounted himself upon her back, Béluguet tried his cap on her, and not one of those little scamps reflected that with a single good kick that excellent beast could have sent them all into the polar star, and even farther. But no! It is no vain thing to be the Pope’s mule, the mule of benedictions and indulgences. The children went blithely on, she did not get angry; and it was only against Tistet Védène that she bore malice. But that fellow, for instance, when she felt him behind her, her hoof itched, and truly she had excellent reason. That ne’er-do-well of a Tistet played her such villainous tricks! He had such cruel fancies after drinking!
One day he took it into his head to make her climb up with him into the clock tower, all the way up to the very top of the palace! And it is no myth that I am telling you—two hundred thousand Provençals saw it. Imagine for yourself the terror of that unhappy mule when, after having for a whole hour twisted like a snail blindly up the staircase, and having clambered up I know not how many steps, she found herself all at once on a platform dazzling with light, and saw, a thousand feet beneath her, a fantastic Avignon: the market booths no larger than walnuts, the papal soldiers before their barracks like red ants, and farther down, over a silver thread, a microscopically little bridge on which the people danced and danced. Ah! poor beast! What panic! At the bray she uttered all the windows of the palace trembled.
“What’s the matter? What are they doing to her?” cried the good Pope, and rushed out upon the balcony.
Tistet Védène was already in the courtyard, pretending to weep and tear out his hair.
“Ah! Holy Father, what is the matter? There is your mule.... Mon Dieu! what will happen to us! Your mule has gone up into the belfry!”
“All by herself?”
“Yes, Holy Father, all by herself. Stay! Look there, up high. Don’t you see her ears waving? They look like two swallows.”
“Mercy on us!” cried the poor Pope on raising his eyes. “But she must have gone mad! Why, she will kill herself. Will you come down, you unhappy creature!”
Pécaïre! She could have asked nothing better than to come down; but how? The stairs—they were not to be thought of: one could mount those things, but as to coming down, one could break one’s legs a hundred times. And the poor mule was disconsolate; but as she roamed about the platform with her great eyes filled with vertigo she thought of Tistet Védène.
“Ah, bandit, if I escape—what a kick tomorrow morning!”
That idea of a kick restored a little courage to her heart; except for that she could not have held out. At last they succeeded in getting her down, but it was not an easy affair. They had to lower her in a litter, with ropes and windlass, and you may imagine what a humiliation it must have been for a Pope’s mule to see herself hanging at that height, afloat with her legs in the air like a beetle at the end of a string. And all Avignon looking on!
The unhappy beast did not sleep that night. It seemed to her as though she were forever turning upon that accursed platform, with the laughter of the city below. Then she thought of that infamous Tistet Védène, and of the delightful kick that she proposed to turn loose the next morning. Ah, my friends, what a kick! They could see the smoke at Pampérigouste.
But, while this pretty reception was being prepared for him at the stable, do you know what Tistet Védène was doing? He was going singing down the Rhône on one of the papal galleys, on his way to the Court of Naples with a company of young nobles whom the city sent every year to Queen Joanna for exercise in diplomacy and in manners. Tistet was not of noble birth; but the Pope desired to recompense him for what he had done for his mule, and above all for the activity he had shown throughout the day of the rescue.
It was the mule who was disappointed the next day!
“Ah, the bandit! He suspected something!” she thought as she shook her bells in fury. “But it’s all the same; go, scoundrel! You will find it waiting for you on your return, that kick—I’ll save it for you!”
And she did save it.
After the departure of Tistet, the Pope’s mule once more found her course of tranquil life and her former habits. Neither Quinquet nor Béluguet came again to her stable. The delightful days of wine à la Française had returned, and with them good-humor, the long siestas, and the little prancing step when she crossed the Avignon bridge. However, since her adventure she was always shown a slight coldness in the city. Folks whispered together as she passed; the old people shook their heads, the children laughed as they pointed to the belfry. Even the good Pope had no longer quite the same confidence in his friend, and whenever he permitted himself to take a little nap on her back on Sundays on returning from his vineyard, this thought always came to him: “What if I should awake 'way up there on the platform!” The mule discerned this and suffered, without saying a word; only, when any one near her mentioned the name of Tistet Védène, her long ears quivered, and with a little laugh she would sharpen the iron of her shoes on the paving.
Seven years passed thus; then at the end of those seven years Tistet Védène returned from the Court of Naples. His time there was not at an end; but he had learned that the Pope’s chief mustard-bearer had died suddenly at Avignon, and, since the post suited him well, he had come in great haste in order to apply for it.
When that intriguer of a Védène entered into the great hall of the palace, the Holy Father had difficulty in recognizing him, so tall had he grown, and stout of body. It must be said, too, that the worthy Pope had grown old and could no longer see well without spectacles.
Tistet was not frightened.
“What, Holy Father, you do not remember me any more? It is I, Tistet Védène!”
“Védène?”
“Why, yes, you know very well—the one who used to carry the wine à la Française to your mule.”
“Oh—yes—yes—I remember. A good little fellow, that Tistet Védène! And now, what is it that he wants of us?”
“Oh, a very little thing, Holy Father. I came to ask you—by the way, do you still have your mule? And is she well? Ah, so much the better! I came to ask of you the post of the chief mustard-bearer, who has just died.”
“First mustard-bearer, you! Why, you are too young. How old are you, then?”
“Twenty years two months, illustrious Pontiff, just five years older than your mule. Ah! that excellent creature! If you only knew how I loved that mule! How I languished for her in Italy! Are you not going to let me see her?”
“Yes, my child, you shall see her,” said the good Pope, deeply moved. “And since you loved her so much, that excellent animal, I do not wish you to live apart from her. From this day, I attach you to my person as chief mustard-bearer. My cardinals will raise an outcry, but so much the worse! I am used to it. Come to meet us tomorrow as we return from vespers, we will deliver to you the insignia of your office in the presence of our chapter, and then—I will take you to see the mule, and you shall come to the vineyard with us two—ha! ha! Go along, now!”
If Tistet Védène was content upon leaving the grand hall, I need not tell you with what impatience he awaited the ceremony of the next day. Meanwhile, they had some one in the palace who was still more happy and more impatient than he: it was the mule. From the time of Védène’s return, until vespers on the following day, the terrible creature did not cease cramming herself with oats and kicking at the wall with her hind feet. She too was preparing herself for the ceremony.
Accordingly, on the morrow, when vespers had been said, Tistet Védène made his entrance into the courtyard of the papal palace. All the high clergy were there—the cardinals in red robes, the advocate of the devil in black velvet, the convent abbés with their little mitres, the church-wardens of the Saint-Agrico, the violet hoods of the members of the household, the lesser clergy also, the papal soldiers in full uniform, the three brotherhoods of penitents, the hermits from Mount Ventoux with their ferocious eyes and the little clerk who walks behind them carrying the bell, the Flagellant Brothers, naked to the waist, the blond sacristans in robes like judges—all, all, down to those who pass the holy water, and he who lights and he who extinguishes the candles—not one was missing. Ah! That was a beautiful installation, with bells, fireworks, sunlight, music, and, as always, those mad tambourine players who led the dance down by the Avignon Bridge.
When Védène appeared in the midst of the assemblage, his imposing deportment and fine appearance called forth a murmur of approbation. He was a magnificent Provençal of the blond type, with long hair curled at the ends and a small unruly beard which resembled the shavings of fine metal from the graving tool of his father, the carver of gold. The report was current that the fingers of Queen Joanna had now and then toyed with that blond beard; and the Sire de Védène had in truth the haughty air and the absent look of those whom queens have loved. That day, to do honor to his nation, he had replaced his Neapolitan garb by a jacket bordered with color-of-rose, in the Provençal fashion, and in his hood trembled a great plume of the Camargue ibis.
As soon as he had entered, the first mustard-bearer bowed with a gallant air, and directed his steps toward the grand dais, where the Pope awaited him in order to deliver to him the insignia of his office: the yellow wooden spoon and the saffron-colored coat. The mule was at the foot of the staircase, all caparisoned and ready to depart for the vineyard. When he passed her, Tistet Védène had a pleasant smile and paused to give her two or three friendly pats upon the back, looking out of the corner of his eye to see if the Pope noticed him. The situation was admirable. The mule let fly:
“There! You are trapped, bandit! For seven years I have saved that for you!”
And she let loose a kick so terrible, so terrible that at Pampérigouste itself one could see the smoke: a cloud of blond smoke in which fluttered an ibis plume—all that was left of the ill-fated Tistet Védène.
Mules’ kicks are not ordinarily so appalling; but then this was a papal mule; and besides, think of it! she had saved it up for seven years. There is no finer example of an ecclesiastical grudge.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] The County of Avignon.