A Spring Walk in Provence

by Archibald Marshall

I don't know how it was that I did not realize on my first visit to the church that the chapel containing the sacred remains, the outside of which can be seen in the photograph above the apse, was to be seen by taking a little trouble about it. From the inside of the church appear the doors from which the double ark is let down by ropes and carried in procession, but I had not thought that there was rather an elaborate chapel up there behind the doors. It was rather late in the evening when the old priest came out from his presbytery to take me up to it.

It is approached by a narrow, winding stairway from the outside of the church, and is about forty feet from the ground. It was enriched in the time of Louis XV, but its decorations were much damaged by the Revolutionaries. The pictured coffer containing the relics of the saints is in a chamber closed by ornamented double doors, in which are also the pulleys and cords by which it is lowered to the floor of the church on the great day of the pilgrimage. All round the little chapel are the crutches and other offerings of those who have been cured by attendance at the shrine. One of the latest is a sort of strait-waistcoat left behind by a cripple who had used it for many years, but went away, as the curé told me, on his own feet, and praising God and the blessed saints.

I walked all round the strong battlements, from which a glorious view extends itself, of the plain with its bright sheets of water on the one side, and the sea and the sands on the other. It was a lovely, peaceful evening, and the old priest admired it as much as I did. He said he liked to come up here away from the world, and often said his Mass in the quiet chapel high above the low roofs of the town. I bought from him the little book he has written about his church, which contains the hymns and prayers and canticles, partly in Latin, partly in French, partly in Provençal, that are used during the days of pilgrimage.

Of the church as a work of defence, he writes: "It is a fortress, with its sentry's walk, its watch tower, its crenellations and machicolations. When Saracens or pirates invaded us, and during the wars of religion, the men went up to the high chapel for defence, at the summons of the watchman, who gave the alarm, while the women and children were shut up in the church, which communicated by two staircases with the roof. During the religious wars, the church was smoked out several times by the assailants."

It was nearly dark when we went down into the crypt, and what I saw of the tomb of the servant Sarah was by the light of a candle which the curé lit for me, dropping the grease about plentifully, as seems to be the way of those who show sacred treasures. It will be remembered that this black servant of the holy ladies accompanied them on their miraculous voyage to Provence. Her body, exhumed with theirs, under the auspices of the good King René, and in his presence, was reburied here, and this half subterranean chapel at Saintes-Maries has been from time immemorial the centre of a cult, the strangest of any with which we have to do.

At the time of the yearly pilgrimage, when good Catholics come to venerate die remains of the saints, there come also hordes of gipsies, who prostrate themselves before the tomb of the servant Sarah, and practise strange rites which have nothing to do with the Christian religion. The good curé in his book mentions the fact that they come in, but says nothing about their worship, which is said to include the adoration of fire, and other mysteries of an immemorially old religion.

I have been able to find nothing very illuminating that bears upon this strange survival and its origins. The Marquis de Baroncelli-Javon has published a little illustrated pamphlet which is of some interest on the subject of gipsies in general, and those that are to be found in this stretch of seaboard in particular, but he is not able to suggest why St. Sarah, as he calls her—but I do not think that she was ever canonized, or regarded as a Christian saint—should have attracted to herself this ancient worship, except by reminding us that she was commonly supposed to be an Egyptian, which is hardly convincing. But that the gipsies should gather at this particular spot and perform their rites, he does find some reason for, and his theories are at least interesting.

He says, first of all, that there are two distinct races of Bohémiens different in feature, in bone formation, colour, character, language and traditions; that they have nothing in common and treat each other not only as strangers but often as enemies. "A gipsy who traffics in horses will never have anything to do with one who leads about dancing bears or works in copper; there will be no understanding between them and they will treat one another with indifference if not with hatred. But this trafficker in horses will immediately recognize as his blood brother another maquignon at Saintes-Maries, it matters not where he comes from."

Now at Saintes-Maries the gipsies with performing bears, or the tinsmiths, are never to be met with. These are the Zingaris, and their home is in the east of Europe. They talk the languages of the north and the east willingly and easily, but with difficulty those of the south.

The gipsies who are to be found in Spain, Languedoc, Provence and parts of Italy call themselves Gitanos or Gitans. These are they who come once at least during their life wanderings to Saintes-Maries, "to salute the earth, to fulfil strange rites, and to regard the sea, their eyes fixed in ecstasy." Where do they come from?