By some means only a little short of a miracle, a way was opened through the dense crowd along the centre of the nave from the door to the altar, and up this way with their offerings real shepherds came—the quaintest procession that anywhere I have ever seen. In the lead were four musicians—playing upon the tambourin, the galoubet, the very small cymbals called palets, and the bagpipe-like carlamuso—and then, two by two, came ten shepherds: wearing the long brown full cloaks, weather-stained and patched and mended, which seem always to have come down through many generations and which never by any chance are new; carrying tucked beneath their arms their battered felt hats browned, like their cloaks, by long warfare with sun and rain; holding in one hand a lighted candle and in the other a staff. The two leaders dispensing with staves and candles, bore garlanded baskets; one filled with fruit—melons, pears, apples, and grapes—and in the other a pair of doves: which with sharp quick motions turned their heads from side to side as they gazed wonderingly on their strange surroundings with their bright beautiful eyes.
Following came the main offering: a spotless lamb. Most originally, and in a way poetically, was this offering made. Drawn by a mild-faced ewe, whose fleece had been washed to a wonder of whiteness and who was decked out with bright-coloured ribbons in a way to unhinge with vanity her sheepish mind, was a little two-wheeled cart—all garlanded with laurel and holly, and bedizened with knots of ribbon and pink paper roses and glittering little objects such as are hung on Christmas-trees in other lands. Lying in the cart placidly, not bound and not in the least frightened, was the dazzlingly-white lamb, decked like the ewe with knots of ribbon and wearing about its neck a red collar brilliant to behold. Now and then the ewe would turn to look at it, and in response to one of those wistful maternal glances the little creature stood up shakily on its unduly long legs and gave an anxious baa! But when a shepherd bent over and stroked it gently, it was reassured; lying down contentedly again in its queer little car of triumph, and thereafter through the ceremony remaining still. Behind the car came ten more shepherds; and in their wake a long double line of country-folk, each with a lighted candle in hand. There is difficulty, indeed, in keeping that part of the demonstration within bounds, because it is esteemed an honour and a privilege to walk in the procession of the offered lamb.
Slowly that strange company moved toward the altar, where the ministering priest awaited its coming; and at the altar steps the bearers of the fruit and the doves separated, so that the little cart might come between them and their offering be made complete, while the other shepherds formed a semi-circle in the rear. The music was stilled, and the priest accepted and set upon the altar the baskets; and then extended the paten that the shepherds, kneeling, might kiss it in token of their offering of the lamb. This completed the ceremony. The tambourin and galoubet and palets and carlamuso all together struck up again; and the shepherds and the lamb's car passed down the nave between the files of candle-bearers and so out through the door.
Within the past sixty years or so this naïve ceremony has fallen more and more into disuse. But it still occasionally is revived—as at Barbentane in 1868, and Rognonas in 1894, and repeatedly within the past decade in the sheep-raising parish of Maussane—by a curé who is at one with his flock in a love for the customs of ancient times. Its origin assuredly goes back far into antiquity; so very far, indeed, that the airs played by the musicians in the procession seem by comparison quite of our own time: yet tradition ascribes the composition of those airs to the good King René, whose happy rule over Provence ended more than four centuries ago.
Another custom of a somewhat similar character, observed formerly in many of the Provençal churches, was the grouping before the altar at the mass on Christmas Day of a young girl, a choir-boy, and a dove: in allegorical representation of the Virgin Mary, the Angel Gabriel, and the Holy Ghost. But the assembly of this quaint little company long since ceased to be a part of the Christmas rite.
XVII
When the stir caused by the coming and the going of the shepherds had subsided, the mass went on; with no change from the usual observance, until the Sacrament was administered, save that there was a vigorous singing of noëls. It was congregational singing of a very enthusiastic sort—indeed, nothing short of gagging every one of them could have kept those song-loving Provençaux still—but it was led by the choir, and choristers took the solo parts. The most notable number was the famous noël in which the crowing of a cock alternates with the note of a nightingale; each verse beginning with a prodigious cock-a-doodle-d-o-o! and then rattling along to the gayest of gay airs. The nightingale was not a brilliant success; but the cock-crowing was so realistic that at its first outburst I thought that a genuine barn-yard gallant was up in the organ-loft. I learned later that this was a musical tour-de-force for which the organist was famed. A buzz of delight filled the church after each cock-crowing volley; and I fancy that I was alone in finding anything odd in so jaunty a performance within church walls. The viewpoint in regard to such matters is of race and education. The Provençaux, who are born laughing, are not necessarily irreverent because even in sacred places they sometimes are frankly gay.
Assuredly, there was no lack of seemly decorum when the moment came for the administration of the Sacrament; which rite on Christmas Eve is reserved to the women, the men communing on Christmas Day. The women who were to partake—nearly all who were present—wore the Provençal costume, but of dark colour. Most of them were in black, save for the white chapelle, or kerchief, and the scrap of white which shows above the ribbon confining the knotted hair. But before going up to the altar each placed upon her head a white gauze veil, so long and so ample that her whole person was enveloped in its soft folds; and the women were so many, and their action was with such sudden unanimity, that in a moment a delicate mist seemed to have fallen and spread its silvery whiteness over all the throng.
Singly and by twos and threes those palely gleaming figures moved toward the altar, until more than a hundred of them were crowded together before the sanctuary rail. Nearest to the rail, being privileged to partake before the rest, stood a row of black-robed Sisters—teachers in the parish school—whose sombre habits made a vigorous line of black against the dazzle of the altar, everywhere aflame with candles, and by contrast gave to all that sweep of lustrous misty whiteness a splendour still softer and more strange. And within the rail the rich vestments of the ministering priests, and the rich cloths of the altar, all in a flood of light, added a warm colour-note of gorgeous tones.
Slowly the rite went on. Twenty at a time the women, kneeling, ranged themselves at the rail; rising to give room to others when they had partaken, and so returning to their seats. For a full half hour those pale lambent figures were moving ghost-like about the church, while the white-veiled throng before the altar gradually diminished until at last it disappeared: fading from sight a little at a time, softly—as dream-visions of things beautiful melt away.