“The Frog which is at the bottom of the font of the church of Saint Paul. Ah! I am no longer surprised that thou hast finished so quickly thy tour of France, booby! The frog at Narbonne! the masterpiece which men go to see from all the ends of the earth! And this idiot,” cried the old Pignol getting more and more excited, “this wicked waster, who gives himself out as ‘companion,’ has not even seen the Frog at Narbonne! Oh! that a son of a master should have to hang his head for shame in his father’s house. No, my son, never shall that be said. Now eat, drink, and go to thy bed, but to-morrow morning, if thou wilt be on good terms with me, return to Narbonne and see the Frog!”
IV
Poor Pignolet knew that his father was not one to retract and that he was not joking. So he ate, drank, went to bed, and the next morning, at dawn, without further talk, having stocked his knapsack with food, he started off to Narbonne.
With his feet bruised and swollen, exhausted by heat and thirst, along the dusty roads and highway tramped poor Pignolet.
At the end of seven or eight days he arrived at the town of Narbonne, from whence, according to the proverb, “comes no good wind and no good person.” Pignolet—he was not singing this time, let it be understood—without taking the time to eat a mouthful or drink a drop at the inn, at once walked off to the church of Saint-Paul and straight to the font to look at the Frog.
And truly there in the marble vase, beneath the clear water, squatted a frog with reddish spots, so well sculptured that he seemed alive, looking up, with a bantering expression in his two yellow eyes at poor Pignolet, come all the way from Grasse on purpose to see him.
“Ah, little wretch!” cried the carpenter in sudden wrath. “Thou hast caused me to tramp four hundred miles beneath that burning sun! Take that and remember henceforth Pignolet of Grasse!”
And therewith the bully draws from his knapsack a mallet and chisel. Bang!—at a stroke he takes off one of the frog’s legs! They say that the holy water became suddenly red as though stained with blood, and that the inside of the font, since then, has remained reddened.
(Almanach Provençal, 1890.)