July 29.
St. Martha.
On the festival of this saint of the Romish church, a great fair is held at Beaucaire, in Languedoc, to which merchants and company resort from a great distance round. It is a great mart for smugglers and contraband traders, and is the harvest of the year both to Beaucaire and Tarascon; for, as the former is not large enough to accommodate the influx of people, Tarascon, in Provence, which is separated from it by the Rhone, is generally equally full.
Tarascon, according to a popular tradition, has its name from a terrible beast, a sort of dragon, known by the name of the tarasque, which, in ancient days, infested the neighbourhood, ravaging the country, and killing every thing that came in its way, both man and beast, and eluding every endeavour made to take and destroy it, till St. Martha arrived in the town, and taking compassion on the general distress, went out against the monster, and brought him into the town in chains, when the people fell upon him and slew him.
St. Martha, according to the chronicles of Provence, had fled from her own country in company with her sister Mary Magdalen, her brother Lazarus, and several other saints both male and female. They landed at Marseilles, and immediately spread themselves about the country to preach to the people. It fell to the lot of St. Martha to bend her steps towards Tarascon, where she arrived at the fortunate moment above mentioned. She continued to her dying day particularly to patronise the place, and was at her own request interred there. Her tomb is shown in a subterranean chapel belonging to the principal church. It bears her figure in white marble, as large as life, in a recumbent posture, and is a good piece of sculpture, uninjured by the revolution. In the church a series of paintings represent the escape of St. Martha and her companions from their persecutors, their landing in Provence, and some of their subsequent adventures. She is the patron saint of Tarascon.
It is presumed that the story of a beast ravaging the neighbouring country had its origin in fact; but that instead of a dreadful dragon it was a hyena. Bouche, however, in his Essai sur l’Histoire de Provence, while he mentions the popular tradition of the dragon, makes no mention of the supposed hyena, which he probably would have done had there been any good ground for believing in its existence.
Be this as it may, the fabulous story of the dragon was the occasion of establishing an annual festival at Tarascon, the reputed origin of which seems no less fabulous than the story itself. According to the tradition, the queen, consort to the reigning sovereign of the country, unaccountably fell into a deep and settled melancholy, from which she could not be roused. She kept herself shut up in her chamber, and would not see or be seen by any one; medicines and amusements were in vain, till the ladies of Tarascon thought of celebrating a festival, which they hoped, from its novelty might impress the mind of their afflicted sovereign.
A figure was made to represent the “tarasque,” with a terrible head, a terrible mouth, with two terrible rows of teeth, wings on its back, and a terrible long tail. At the festival of St. Martha, by whom the “tarasque” was chained, this figure was led about for eight days successively, by eight of the principal ladies in the town, elegantly dressed, and accompanied by a band of music. The procession was followed by an immense concourse of people, in their holyday clothes; and during the progress, alms were collected for the poor. All sorts of gaieties were exhibited; balls, concerts, and shows of every kind—nothing, in short, was omitted to accomplish the purpose for which the festival was instituted.