Here was Provence and bouillabaisse; nothing disappointing; the concoction not one whit less nauseous than one might have expected!
Dumas writes with ardour about the dish:—
"While polenta and macaroni possess all the characteristics of primitive and antediluvian simplicity, bouillabaisse is the result of the most advanced state of culinary civilisation; comprising in itself a whole epic of unexpected episodes and extraordinary incidents."
The celebrated wines of Chateauneuf-des-Papes, Sainte Baume, and others I doubt if we tasted; but all the wines seemed ambrosial to us; especially when it was "weather for singing the Peyrenolle," a very ancient song of which only the name remains in this saying of the people.
The dance of the farandole is of Greek origin and must be infinitely graceful, but alas! we only heard of it, never saw it danced. The dancers join hands to form chains, each chain led by a man or a woman, who plays a merry air on the gaboulet. These chains, following their leaders, then form into lines, passing rapidly before one another in contrary directions—like divergent currents—dancing in time to the music. And then they swing off into circles and dance round and round maypoles and walnut-trees, till the whole place is wild with merriment. On occasions of great rejoicing the people used to dance the farandole through the streets, all joining in the whirling circles, rich and poor. It was like a wind of joy flying through the city!
The people of Provence have also some Saracen dances, bequeathed to them by that marauding people when they lived in the Mountains of the Moors, in their rock-set fortresses: Li Mouresco and lis Ouliveto, which was danced after the olive harvest.
This pervasive characteristic of dance and song for which Provence is so famous, doubtless springs from the fact that this people have never ceased to be pagans.
The clergy of the Middle Ages in vain tried to suppress this element. There are strange stories of the mingling of ancient customs and diversions with Christian ceremonies: dancing and songs, the antique chorus, and love-poems sung or recited in the very churches; ecclesiastical discipline being far less stringent in the south than in the north of France, where classic influences had been weaker. Religion was associated in the minds of the Provençals with gaiety and festivals; and the clergy, in order to attract and retain the people, had found it necessary to recognise this pagan spirit which took its origin in far-off generations when the Greeks founded Marseilles and its numerous off-shoots; when for five and a half centuries the Romans ruled and civilised the country. In the ninth and tenth centuries, moreover, the clergy and the people of the south were more or less closely assimilated, and this touch of paganism in the priesthood made possible what at first sight challenges belief.
At Limoges, for instance, during the feast of St. Martial, the people used to substitute for the words of the Latin liturgy some original couplets in the Romance tongue: "St. Martial, pray for us, and we will dance for you," and they furthermore broke out into a dance in the church, without the faintest sense of incongruity; for to these people worship, song, and rhythmic movement were parts of one and the same impulse.