Mistral.
CHAPTER XX
AN INN PARLOUR
After dinner—which by the way was of extraordinary excellence—we were invited to the parlour of mine host, and felt like travellers in some old romance on the eve of antique adventures. Nothing antique, however, happened, except, indeed, the odd gathering of the family and the guests of the hotel, and the talk that went circling cheerfully round the fire in the little dull-tinted room. The dulness of colouring was the result of long use; everything having faded into harmony and grown together through long and affectionate association.
Besides Madame and a pretty niece who was staying with her, there were two youths employed in the seed industry, who lived in the town and came in every evening for their dinner. They were on terms of friendly intimacy with the host and hostess who evidently regarded their office in other lights than that of mere commercial enterprise. They looked upon their guests as under their charge, and their desire was to minister to their comfort and pleasure in every possible way. Monsieur and one of the youths played draughts, Madame sewed and chatted, and Mademoiselle, the niece, made herself generally agreeable. Between the two youths was a mild rivalry for her smiles. We, as strangers, were treated with special courtesy.
Madame and her husband did the honours of their homely salon most gracefully. The conversation turned on the Monuments of St. Remy, its objects of interest which strangers come to see, and its excursions: Les Baux above all, on the other side of the Alpilles.
"Une ville très ancienne, sculptée dans les rochers, toute élevée au dessus de la vallée—mais une cité vraiment remarquable, Mesdames. Vous devez certainment y aller."
And we decided at once to do so, arranging to have a trap to take us across the mountains on the following morning.
Meanwhile we gathered further information about St. Remy itself. There is La Maison de la Reine Jeanne, in which the family of the famous Mistral has lived for generations. In the foundations were discovered the bones of an elephant and various weapons, all supposed to be relics of Hannibal's passage through the country at the foot of the Alpilles.