"Eh bien, le vent venait et mon père, etait plein de joie, et il criait 'brava, brava.'"
In his house at Maillane, protected from foreign intrusion by the double army of the winds and the mosquitos, this chief of the Félibres passes his days, rejoicing in their scourges because they frighten away the wandering tourist—"tempted by our horizons and our sky"—from the land of the Sun and the Cypress.
To him the roar and shriek of the mistral is always a "musico majestuoso."
This tremendous being (as indeed he seems when one has once felt the very earth shaking beneath his assault) must be responsible for much in the Provençal character and literature; it is impossible to believe it to have been without profound influence on the imagination of the many races that have made the country their home.
Its voice is elemental, passionate, sometimes expressing blind fury, but often full of an agony that even its own tremendous cry cannot utter; a torment as of Prometheus and a grandeur of spirit no less than his.
The mistral produces effects of astonishing contrast; for when he is silent Provence is the most smiling, kindly land in the world; and half its stories are of gentle and lovely things: of chivalry, of romance, of dance and song and laughter. But when once the Black Wind begins to rouse himself from his lair on Mont Ventoux, then tragedy and pain and despair are abroad on wide dark wings.
All the "merry hamlets" of Provence have delightful courts or places shaded with plane-trees. Here the villagers assemble on Sundays and Saints' days, and here may always be found a few happy loungers resting on the benches, or playing some game of whose mysterious antiquity they are blissfully unconscious.
It is the country of mediævalism; it is still more the country of paganism, of Greek temples, Phœnician inscriptions and tombs, Roman baths, amphitheatres, aqueducts; it boasts a profusion of exquisite churches, splendid mediæval castles; scenes of troubadour history, of the reputed Courts of Love; of a thousand traditions and stories that have become the heritage of every civilised people.
In the valley of Elorn, near Landerneau—called the Cradle of Chivalry—was found, according to the legend, the veritable round table of King Arthur, and here rose into the sky the towers of the Château de Joyeuse Garde of the Arthurian legends.
But Provence rests its claim to having been the birthplace of Chivalry on better grounds than this, for the first troubadour was a Provençal, the Comte Quilhelm de Poictier; a most debonnaire gentleman, of attractive appearance, courtly manners, and an exhaustive knowledge of the Gay Science, making great havoc with the hearts of ladies.