It was a charming, fertile country that we passed through, with one farm succeeding another—comfortable-looking, rambling, stone-built houses and outbuildings, shielded from the fierce winds by rows of tall cypresses, and even the fields and market-gardens fenced in with dried reeds. The mistral and the bise, when they really set to work, are a scourge. But as old François Mistral used to say when he heard grumbling about the weather: "Good people, there is One above who knows what He is about, and what is good for us. Supposing those great winds which bring life to Provence never blew, how would the mists and fogs of our marshes be dispersed? And if we never had the heavy rains, how would our wells and springs and rivers be fed? We need all sorts, my children."
At Châteaurenard we changed omnibuses for the five miles' journey to Avignon. They were mostly townspeople now who crowded the compartments. There was a family in the corner of mine—a mother with three handsome daughters who crocheted or knitted busily during the whole journey, and a father who sat silent and looked learned, but amiable. Perhaps he was a félibre; they are mostly learned and amiable; and Avignon is one of their chief centres.
We crossed the Durance, a broad and mighty river, soon to join its waters with those of the Rhône. The sun was setting over it, and the knitting ladies laid down their wool and exclaimed at the beauty of the scene. After another mile or so we were set down just outside the ramparts of the ancient city.
CHAPTER XIII
Avignon
Some one had told me that he had stayed at Avignon for a night while motoring down to the Riviera early in March, and had seen the Rhône under a full moon from the garden of the Popes' Palace, while the nightingales sang among the trees all around him. This information had been presented to me amidst the dreary days of clouds and thawing snow which come with the end of winter in the Swiss Alps, and the contrast was so entrancing that I had half a mind to make straight for Avignon first of all, by train. I had seen that beautiful garden, and the grand view from its terraces, with the Rhône rolling its mighty stream down below; the fabled bridge of St. Bénézet still throwing a few arches across it, with its two-storied chapel at the end of them; the forts and towers of Villeneuve a mile away on the other side; and the distant mountains closing in the great expanse of fruitful country. It was a spot to dream of and to long for.
But I think there must have been a mistake about the nightingales; or at least about the month. It was now the twenty-fourth of March, and, although the trees were beginning to break into leaf at last, I heard no nightingales in Provence.
Avignon has a famous inn—the Hôtel de l'Europe—very old, very picturesque, with its archway and flower-grown court. Indeed, it is so much in keeping with all the rest that a stay there serves to heighten the pleasant memories that every visitor must carry away with him of the fascinating city. But on this journey I was on the lookout for something more retiring; and by good fortune I found something as good of its kind as I have ever happened upon.