The famous poet, however, does not live in this historical home at St. Remy, but at Maillane, a little village of the plain about seven kilometres distant. The house, to which many a pious pilgrimage has been made, is square and white and stands in a little shady garden with a high wall and iron gate facing the village street. Thanks to the poet and his colleagues the ancient costume still lingers at Maillane and at St. Remy, and on Sundays the women go to church in the soft, white fichu and picturesque head-dress that one has learnt to associate with the women of Arles. The Provençal type is characteristic; dark eyes and hair, olive skin, and a singularly fine carriage of the figure and head.
GROVE AT ST. REMY.
By E. M. Synge.
Mistral and his fellow Félibres have much to do with the survival of art and old customs. One of this little band of modern troubadours lives still, as we learn, in the house of his family at St. Remy, and Mistral (as we have seen) is not far away across the plain, faithful always to the land that he loves so deeply and labours so hard to preserve in its ancient beauty, ancient faiths and ancient language. I had afterwards the privilege of visiting Mistral at Maillane and M. Girard and his wife at St. Remy, and of hearing them speak with intense enthusiasm and affection of the Provence that is passing away. M. Girard's angry melancholy at the erasure of all character and individuality from lands and peoples was pathetic and impressive.
He exhibited his fine collection of ancient furniture, crockery, pewter, and a thousand beautiful relics: among them a splendid example of the "Crêche," that quaint Provençal institution with which the children are made happy every Christmas. It is a modelled representation of the coming of the Magi, but on this root idea the artists of Provence have grafted many additions. The Virgin, beautifully sculptured and coloured, sits in a hilly landscape and holds a sort of grand reception: Magi and other distinguished visitors surround her, while shepherds, merchants, publicans and sinners, varied by ornate donkey-drivers and goatherds, are perched on hill-tops among companionable windmills about their own size; and peasants are lavishly distributed in very green meadows in the vicinity; all congregated to offer homage to the Madonna and the haloed Babe. The crêche is reverently veiled with a curtain on ordinary days, and its owner drew this aside and lighted the candles to illumine the treasured heirloom which has delighted so many generations ... and not alone of children.
Our hostess of the Hôtel de Provence was learned about the seed industry of St. Remy, and explained how ruthlessly every bloom is nipped off and prevented from seeding if it does not answer truly to its type. That was how the splendid flowers were achieved: viz., by a persistent interference with the ordinary course of nature—a fact which gives food for thought. Besides flowers, St. Remy has some fine vegetables to boast of. I had often noticed strange, unknown, gourd-like things, bright red or yellow, in the shop windows. The cornichon serpent, "ce légume extravagant," as somebody calls it, is said to measure nearly two metres! But that immoderate object we never saw.
We were out betimes next morning, in the rose-garden which was glistening with dew. The Garden of Pleasure truly, guarded by the mournful cypresses! That seemed full of significance: the Roses of Pleasure sheltered by those dark trees of Experience and Grief.
Burns sings that "pleasures are like poppies"; and so perhaps they are, but there are some that are more like roses—Roses of Provence!
They are the sort of pleasures of which that strange pot-pourri that we call happiness is made. For surely there is such a thing as happiness, though the science of it is as hard to learn as any other; perhaps harder than them all. Maybe it is necessary for us unteachable mortals to have torn our way—bruised and bleeding—through that black line of cypresses before we come in sight of it.