Livette sat down and waited. Monsieur le curé did not come. The fact was, that Monsieur le curé, who had already written two monographs, one entitled La Cure de Boismaux, and the other La Villa de la Mar, was at that moment at work upon a third: Concordance of the Legends of the Blessed Maries, with this sub-title: Concerning the strange and regrettable confusion that seems to exist between Saint Sara and Marie the Egyptian.
La Cure de Boismaux also had a sub-title: Monograph concerning the domains of the Château d’Avignon in Camargue. Monsieur le curé recalled the fact that the domains of the Château d’Avignon formerly constituted a separate commune. That commune naturally had a curé, and in those days the proprietor of the Château d’Avignon was General Miollis, brother of the Bishop of Digne mentioned by Monsieur Victor Hugo in Les Misérables under the name of Myriel.
In a special chapter, Monsieur le curé sought, to no purpose, to find a reason, telluric or otherwise, for the fact that the estates of the Château d’Avignon are particularly subject to invasion by locusts, which sometimes have to be fought in Camargue, as in Africa, by regiments.
As to the Concordance, that was a very important and very necessary work. It was based, in great measure, upon the authority of the Black Book. That Latin work, preserved in the archives of Saintes-Maries, was written, in 1521, by Vincent Philippon, who signed himself: 2000 Philippon![3] (Jesus himself did not disdain the pun.) There is a French translation of the Black Book. It was published in 1682, and begins thus:
“Au nom de Dieu mon œuvre comancée
Par Jésus-Christ soit toujours advancée.
Le Saint-Esprit conduise sagement
Ma main, ma plume, et mon entendement.”[4]
Here follows the true version of the story of the patron saints of Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer.
Marie Jacobé, mother of Saint James the Less, Marie Salomé, mother of Saint James the Greater and of Saint John the Evangelist, came not alone to the shores of Camargue. The boat without sail or oars contained also their servants Marcella and Sara, Lazarus and all his family, and several of the Christ’s disciples.
Monsieur le curé would prove, with documents to sustain him, that Mary Magdalen was not in the boat. She came to Provence by some other means, no one can say by what miracle.
With the exception of the two Maries and Sara, all the passengers upon the miraculous craft dispersed in different directions, preaching and making converts.
The holy women did not leave Camargue, the island in the Rhône, divided at that time into a great number of small islands by the ponds—a veritable archipelago, called Sticados and inhabited by heathens. In those days, all these small islands, formed by the swamps, were covered with forests and filled with wild beasts. And this delta of the Rhône was infested with crocodiles.