In the Camargue

Front matter

IN THE CAMARGUE. B_ EMILY BOAVLES. " There 6hall never be one lost good ! what was, shall live as before ; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ; On the earth the broken arcs ; in tbe heaven a perfect round." Browning. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 1873. (AU 7i(jhts reservfd.) BECCLES : PRINTED BY WILLIAM MOORE AND CO., CAXTON WORKS. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Wheke IS IT ? 1 II. Noel, and what she shall do .... 13 III. Rambert the Cattle. guard .... 25 IV. The Muselade, and what came op it . . .38 T. Harry Nasmyth spbaks his Mind ... 57 VI. How Leopold Morland obeyed his Conscience 68 VII. The Fruit of the Tree 79 VIII. More Fruit of the Tree 90 IX. Rambert again ....... 100 X. The Morlands in general .... 118 XI.

The False Isolte 136 XII. " Farewell, Sweet Heart ! " . . . . 140 XIII. Aigues Mortes 148 XIV. The Abbess and the Confessor . . . 159 XV. The Ferrade 170 XVI. Rambert offers his Life 184 XVII. Rambert's Burial. — Les Stes. Maries . . 190 XVIII. " Farewell, my Love, my Life "... 200 XIX. The Feast of the Three Marys .... CONTENTS. CHAP. • PAGE XX. Anne Morland speaks her Mind . * . 221 XXI. The Wiles of the False Isolte .... 234 XXII. How Leopold conducted himself . . . 243 XXIII. The Ride to Roehampton 251 XXIV. " HE COMETH NOT, SHE SAID " . . . . 257 XXV. How Noel conducted herself .... 267 XXVI. Two Marriages 275 XXVII. The Hospice Salome 284 XXVIII. L'Envoi

Chapter I. Where Is

IT? Very early dawn, lighting up with slant rays a strange landscape, apparently some African desert of level sand, glittering with smad shining particles like beads, and studded with the golden stars of a particular kind of aster. The stagnant waters of a vast salt lake gleam under the morning rays like a sheet of oil, and the dawn has awakened a vast multitude of sea-birds, cranes, wild-ducks, and flamingoes, which are diving and splashing with mournful cries in the passive water and enormous masses of reeds which hedge the banks. Afar off — and it is the only relief to the sad coloured monotony of the scene — is a wood of Aleppo pines, whose umbrella heads and rich massive green are a positive refreshment to the eye. Is it Asia, Africa, or part of some trans-oceanic world ? n Only the south of France — " Sunny Provence," lovely Languedoc, by poetical license.

Between the pine wood and the lake lay a sort of farm. Ash-coloured buildings roofed with reeds, and crusted with the small floating moss which the damp mistral generates, contained a few rooms in which the ready wealthy owner lived with his mother and daughter— he was a widower of many years — in what he considered great comfort and respectability. Around his tumbledown house, tumbledown fences enclosed a fine orchard of mulberry and almond trees, besides rich crops of rye, lucerne, and barley, with a quantity of vegetables. Long stacks of bees also showed that honey was a plentiful article of food; and a large out house, stacked in the usual manner with divisions and partition-wads of brushwood, sounded to the ear of the passer-by like a gigantic watchmaker's shop, from the multitude of silkworms now spinning their cocoons.

The farm consisted of a large kitchen, with the marmite, which was the usual sitting-room, a second rough kitchen or scullery where the dirty work was done, and an outroom in which fuel of driftwood, dried cattle-dung (bouse *), and a little pine were stored, as well as the various tools and implements used on the farm. Beyond this was a rough wattled fowl-house, and a large flat pool for ducks, whose inmates and frequenters * The bouse is dried and used in the Crau and Camargue as fuel, exactly as among the Arabs. were now chicking and quacking at the height of their powers. Perhaps it was in obedience to their loud summons and appeal for freedom that a door opened at the bottom of a staircase leading to the three rooms above the kitchen, and a girl of about sixteen just glanced at the clumsy but trustworthy clock over the shelves adorned with crockery, and, taking a basket of refuse grain from a stand, went out and liberated the poultry, who instantly rushed, tumbling over each other, as if each of their lives hung upon being the foremost to catch the scattered grain on the ground.

While the happy creatures pecked, and scuffled, and fought over each separate barleycorn, the girl, who had at first smded and looked -interested as the fowls gathered about her, tame enough to jump up and catch the grain from her hand, now stood shading her eyes from the level sun rays, and looking intently across the sandy plain. Her smile vanished, and the ex pression of her face became intensely earnest, far reaching, and sad. It was a wonderful countenance for a girl of sixteen to possess. A pale, sensitively drawn face, with every nerve and muscle as fine as those of a highbred Arab, a delicate nose, slightly dilated at the nostrils, the love liest curved lips, and long, yellow-brown, thick-fringed eyes, surrounded with pale violet shadow — eyes like fathomless mountain pools now, soft with feeling and the "most ignorantly innocent affection, but revealing a volcano of Provencal passion, a lava compounded of those strange Greek and Saracen elements not easily to be described or kept within bounds.

Woe be to the man who should stir it in its depths, and to the day when it should be stirred. With the exception of the lips, there was not a particle of colour in Noel Privas's face, and the skin was almost Egyptian in its pale, clear brown. Her hair was very long, fine, and silky, dusk rather than purple black, and was plaited and wound in thick fillets round her exquisite head, so as to give the impression of her being crowned. Thin and brown and colourless it might be, but Noel Privas's face had a wonderful beauty of its own to eyes that were experienced and a mind that discerned. " Noel ! Noel ! " caded a harsh, loud voice from the stairs. " What are you doing, child ? Is the kitchen swept and the marmite kindled ? " The girl started and turned towards the voice. " I have been feeding the fowls, grandmother.

I am going to sweep the kitchen now." She threw down the re mainder of the grain, and hastened into the kitchen, tying on a coarse apron as she did so. " Aye, aye ! feeding the fowls ! " said the same grating voice. " That takes a quarter of an hour to folk who want to idle, and five minutes to the hard working ! But you are a good girl ad the same." Noel did not seem speciady impressed either by the scolding voice or the commendations.; but humming to herself one of the mournful, minor airs, which, if they are really handed down from the troubadours, could not have had a very cheering effect on those gentle men's lives, she swept the kitchen trimly with a broom of long, fine rush, and with a handful of cattle bouse and pine slips quickly kindled the marmite, and set on the pot to boil — a squat, but antique double handled pot, which would have driven a pottery codector crazy till he had bargained for it and obtained.

She had just done this, when the stair door was pushed open and an old woman, the owner of the grating voice, came in. Like ad southern women of any age, she looked much older than she was ; and her brown, decided hook-nosed face might have been dried under the salt marsh suns for a century, for any evidence to the contrary, exceptthat when she smiled — - and it was a kindly, pleasant smile — her white, strong teeth were to be seen ad sound. Paquette Privas was dressed in a full petticoat of olive-green stuff or cloth, with a deep orange handkerchief crossed in front and tied in a knot behind. The sleeves of her gown were dark brown, and the linen cap on her head had a small scarlet handkerchief tied over it. After looking in the pot to see in what stage the soup was, the old woman reached down her distaff from a corner cupboard of open shelves, and, taking a stool, sat down outside the door, under the projecting roof ledge, which sheltered her from the sun.

Noel spread the table with plates and spoons, a yard or so of bread cutin portions, and a great wooden bowl of salad, dressed with a good deal of oil. Then she went to the doorway and IN THE CA3IARGUE. said, " Grandmother, shall I go out and call father now ? " " Where is he, child ? " " In the pine wood, Gran, talking to Rambert. " Has Rambert brought his cattle to this teradou V* asked the old woman, looking sharply at the girl, whose eyes were fixed upon the sand level, and did not observe her. " Yes, Gran ; I saw the bulls going across this morning at sunrise, with Oriflamme at their head, and then I saw father go out with Roi and Rene to the wood." " Aye, aye ! if the dogs were there, I'll warrant you could see fast enough. When I want you to spin a hank, then your eyes won't serve you, they ache so !

" " Gran," exclaimed the girl, laying one brown little hand on the old woman's shoulder, and smiling down at her, " the flax thread is fine and weak, and when it goes round and round it makes me giddy with watching it. Still I love the distaff, for certainly the holy Marys all used it, and spun with it the winding sheet of the Blessed Christ. But any eyes, even the blindest, could see Roi and Rene jumping and barking round my father. But you do like to scold me, don't you, Gran ? " " I like you to grow up handy and industrious, as a woman ought to be. Your mother was a good wife, Noel. She was not strong, nor country-like, but she was never idle. Weaving, spinning, knitting, and * Teradou, the run where the cattle arc pasturing. patching — her little hands could do them ad ; and she sat there, so silent and yet so bright, that I never wondered your father did not marry again after she left him and went home.

The salt-gatherers used to come round him, and talk to him about this woman and that, but he said his old mother could fid the pot, and kindle the marmite, and bring up the chdd. And also once he told me that, as Perlette could not bring you up herself, as she was gone to the Kingdom of God, he should like you to be brought up by the hand that fashioned her, and not by a strange woman who never saw her ways. And now go you, child, and call your father, but only ted him the soup is ready, and don't stay to chatter nor meddle with men's business." The girl signed acquiescence with a graceful southern gesture, and sped across the broad white tract of sand that separated the farm from the massive pines. Like " fleet Camifla," Noel scarcely crushed the myriads of asters and stalks of sea lavender that studded the sands, and which were too familiar to attract her eye ; but as she drew near the gnarled and twisted old pines, many a lovely wood blossom excited her desire to stay and gather a wreath for the Madonna's image in the old kitchen which had now only yellow asters round its feet.

But Noel remembered her grandmother's injunction, and she resolutely threaded her way through the grove, raising her voice to the peculiar, mournful 7_V THE CAMARGUE. "0 la ! " used by the inhabitants of the district in calling to one another from the saltpans or canals. A responsive call, not far off, answered her, and soon afterwards a violent rushing sound was heard, and two great cattle dogs — one white, with black points, the other taAvny yellow — came bounding round her, barking in short, sharp, falsetto notes, and making every demonstration of joy. " Dear dogs ! " said Noel, trying to distribute her caresses equally between the eager creatures as they careered round her, now touching her shoulders, and then gently just reaching her face. " Roi, where is father ? Down, dear Rene, there's a good dog !

Hi ! where is he ? " They cantered forward, looking back, to show her the way, till she came within sight of two men sitting on a huge, fallen pine trunk, and talking so eagerly, that they did not see her tid she was standing almost in front of them. Both the men then started, and one of them flushed red through his deeply bronzed skin. " Father, the soup is boiling over, and wid be quite spoilt. Gran wid be put out if you do not come." " Aye, that she will, my girl," answered the elder of the two men. " Grandams are worse than sweethearts or wives to harry or drive. Stay a moment, Noel, and I will come with you." " Gran forbade me to stay, dear father. Shad I take your wallet ? " " Aye, do so ! But come and speak to Rambert, Noel. Neighbourly words become neighbours, and Rambert wid be our neighbour for one while, at least tdl the buds and videls (calves) have eaten up all the pasture on the teradou."

" Good day, Rambert," said the girl carelessly. " I hope your bulls will keep out of my way, for they frighten me so, I dare not come to the wood." " They shall never frighten you where I am, Noel," replied the huge, bronzed cattle-guard eagerly, his rugged face lighting into a kind of rough beauty as he spoke. " You must get used to my herd, Noel, and they will fodow you like your dogs. Look at Ori flamme now ; he is as wise and docile as an elephant, and full as loving as Roi or Rend." " Oh, I am not afraid of Oriflamme," said Noel, going close up to the gigantic ox with a bell round his neck, who was grazing close behind his master ; " but then he is your donda'ire* and of course he is to be trusted." The huge creature turned his splendid eyes upon the girl as if to acknowledge her good opinion, and, while she gently pulled and smoothed his tufted forelock and crest, bent his head and its terrible out curved horns towards her as if delighting in her touch.

" See how he knows you already ! " exclaimed Ram- * The leader of the herd or manade is called donddire, and answers the purpose both of a sheep-dog and a kontiee, or trained elephant, to his herdsman. bert with delight, looking at the pretty picture of brute force subdued by the slender maiden's hand. " You could tame Les Rochers himself, I know. Will you come and try some day ? " " If Gran will let me, and father wid bring me," replied Noel. " I should like to see Les Rochers ; I have heard that no one could ever conquer him or brand him with any mark but you." " That is true, Noel ; but he is branded now. Come and see for yourself." " Oh, but what will Gran say ? " cried Noel, with sudden remembrance, and, catching up her father's wallet, she made the hastiest, pretty little gesture of farewell to the herdsman, whose eyes were still riveted upon her, and calling the dogs, set off at a swift pace towards the farm.

" I must go too ; it is later than I thought," said Privas, collecting his tools into a heap, and throwing over them a sack. " Well, good day, Rambert ; keep up your heart, and remember that the child is young and tender yet, and must have her own time to settle her mind to marriage. I am your fast friend, as you know, and this matter of your uncle's legacy at Aigues Mortes sets ad things straight in a housekeep ing point of view. Good day." And Nicole Privas strode away at such a pace, that he overtook his daughter before she had got to the middle of the sand plain. " What were you and Rambert talking so earnestly about ? " she asked, as soon as they were walking side by side. He pinched her brown cheek kindly and laughed. " Why ? What did you hear us say ? " " I did not hear anything except something about houses and gardens at Aigues Mortes, and you said it would do very well, and you were glad.

Father, you are not going away from here to live in that dreadful, desolate old town ? " and as Noel spoke she clutched him by the arm, and looked into his face as if to read his inmost heart. Nicole laughed. " Live at Aigues Mortes ! Why, child, the very words are impossible ! One could only die behind those old turreted walls ! " "That is what I feel, father. Oh, I am glad to hear you say that ! A dreadful fear flashed through me that you meant to make some change, and last week you said to me, ' Child, you can't expect to live here always, on the edge of the Valcaires.' * Why should I not always live in my own home, father ? " " Child, child ! you run away with such notions. I never meant to go and live anywhere else. But girls do grow up and marry, you know, and then they go and make other homes for themselves."

" I shall never marry ! " said Noel, withdrawing her arm from her father's, and walking on with a proud, light step. * The gi-cat salt lake in the Camargue. "Pecaire ! What is in the wind now ? Not a nun nery, I hope ? " " No, I shad never be a nun. I am not good enough," said Noel, as decisively as before. " Wed, wed ! you are good enough for me," said Nicole, with an instinctive feeling that there was always something folded up in the depths of Noel's eyes that he did not understand. " And now we will go in and see Gran, and eat our bread and soup."

Chapter II. Noel, And What She Shall Do

The whole region of the Rhone deltas is so wild and singular, and so unlike everything we have been ac customed to associate with Provence, Languedoc, and the land of the troubadours and their songs, that it wid be kinder to photograph it for the reader's benefit before carrying him forward further into the story of the lives just opened before him. The island of the Camargue,* formed by the main body of the Rhone, the Petit Rhone, and the Mediterranean, and contain ing the huge salt lake of the Yalcai'res, besides smaller waters, is chiefly famous for the village (now) of Les Saintes Maries, the traditional resting place of St. Mary Salome, St. Mary the mother of St. James, and St. Mary Magdalene, who are traditionally said first to have evangelized the Camargue. The relics of the three Marys are stid venerated there by a crowd of pilgrims every twenty-fifth of May.

The island stretches without an interruption from Aries to the * From Icamax, reed, and agros, field. coast, and is chiefly composed of mud banks, gravel beds, sand levels, and vast salt or brackish marshes, where at certain times of the year the most pestdential vapours and malaria abound. There are, however, artificiady watered portions of the Camargue, where cultivation produces a variety of rich crops. The salt waters are kept out by dykes, as in Holland ; the thick mud brought clown by the Rhone is spread on the land ; and the richness of the grass, corn, and green crops contrasts in the most singular manner with the gen eral barrenness of the land. On the barren wastes, which nearly swallow up the land portions of the island, salt is the sole melancholy production. The ground, to a considerable depth, is full of it.

In summer what looks like a thick hoar frost of salt efflorescence lies on the surface, and when the pools dry up a cake of salt several inches thick coats the space. Vast flocks of pelicans, Egyptian ibis, and flamingoes haunt these brackish, reedy " broads," adding to the African aspect of the landscape, which is completed by the continual summer mirage, when the salt and sandy plains take the semblance of one vast lake. Herds of cattle, bulls, oxen, and fierce wild cows, droves of sheep, and small horses of Arab blood, cover the wastes wherever irrigation has pro duced pasture, and the guarding, w^eaning, training, and branding of these herds offer some of the most remarkable features of this extraordinary country. The cattle-guards, or gardians, having once broken in their fiery, active, clean-muscled little horses called aigues, become as completely a part of them as the Mexican Spaniards or Indians of the Pampas.

With out saddle or stirrups they will gallop round or among the fierce unruly bulls, spear them with the trident, or three-pronged fork, brand them with hot irons, and even leap their horses over them when danger becomes imminent from their horns. When they dismount and leave the horses free to graze, they come again at their whistle like dogs. During the branding or ferrade, and bull races, many of the cattle-guards are killed, or so badly wounded that they remain maimed or crippled and helpless for life ; yet these fierce, brave race of men never flinch from the office, and the ranks of cattle-guards fill in like a regiment of soldiers in battle. There is no doubt that the life of wild lawless freedom in the open air, with its rushing gadops, the sense of complete mastery over their horses, and the pride they take in the beauty of their fierce, dangerous cattle, has an intense charm for the Provencal cattle guards, which counterbalances the sense of continual danger, homelessness, and fatigue.

Still, in a general way, the life is not considered so " respectable " as that of the salt-codectors (sduniers), whose work is one of the most disagreeable, monotonous, depressing, and unhealthy in Europe. The saltpans are connected in a sort of chain by canals, which have to be kept clean and unencumbered of stones and rubbish. The ARGUE. pans themselves require a great deal of attention, and when the salt is codected and piled, it must be care fully covered from the damp and wet. During great part of the year the mistral blows incessantly in Provence, sometimes bringing with it damp vapours, driving mists, and soaking rain-storms. This pre vailing wind of " Sunny Provence " is so violent that it lifts clouds of sand and stones, carrying them in its course with great force, unroofs ricks and houses, and has even been known to unseat men on horseback, and throw them on the ground.

Much damage is therefore often caused to the salt in its preparation, and while forming in crystals, and very much weariness of flesh and spirit is the consequence to the poor saltmen engaged. The mistral frequently brings with it a dense yedow haze, which, besides its darken ing, gloomy, and depressing effects, is also very un wholesome. Altogether, the salt districts of the Camargue do not offer a cheerful aspect. Such as it is, however, the inhabitants are deeply attached to their wild, African-looking region ; and, pallid, emaciated, and fever-stricken as they are, cannot bear the idea of removal. Their unhedged unwaded levels, with their occasional reaches of pine forest, are beautiful in their sight ; their feasts and gatherings of cattle-guards and their families are high festivals to them ; and in their wild, unfettered freedom, they almost look with pity upon the farmers, or inhabitants of the mas, who are bound to a distinct and recurrent system of labour to ensure their crops ; and those who are looked upon with the most un feigned pity, above ad, are the professional men, the doctor, the lawyer, the maire, and the substantial tradesmen — as we should say, " chimney-pots : " cha peaux noirs — of the one town of the district, Aigues Mortes.

If beyond the lowest depth a deeper still was to be sounded by the plummet of Camargascan opinion, it lay behind the glorious, crenellated, arcaded battlements of that marvellous old town. But it is time to return to Cabridelle, the old farm in which the Privas family, from father to son, had dwelt for generations, and which, while carefully handed down as a precious heirloom, had graduady mouldered and crumbled away tid portions of it threatened to fly before every fresh mistral wind. The utmost amount of labour and exertion never achieved more than the collecting of the thick, fat mud brought down by the Rhone ; the storing and working it with a certain amount of chalk or lime, and the varech or seaweed thrown up on the shore ; and keeping the dykes in order, that the salt water might obey the direction of the incomparable Critic — Ever while you live, Thames, keep between your banks.

Finady the mud was spread upon the spaces thus severed and secured from the salt flood. After that — which was clearly a process requiring a considerable outlay of labour, if not of money — there c ARGUE. were the crops to sow, to weed, and to house ; and scarcely was this toil over before the collection of the next year's mud compost must begin again. Breathing time for building repairs there was none, and all that Privas could possibly manage was to replace the stone flags that were blown off the roof, and to keep the old house weathertight from the driving winds and rain. Still, in a rough, careless fashion, there was plenty of wealth at Cabridede ; and corn, wine, silk, oil, honey, and flax were more abundantly stored in the old bicocq than in many a lordly chateau on the Upper Rhone. Privas and his two women-kind fudy enjoyed the meal this morning, for they had all been long afoot ; and while Noel was satisfying the dogs, who had posted themselves on each side of her, licking their chops, and every now and then spasmodicady getting up, and sitting down again on their haunches, with a short whine of appeal, Privas said to his mother, " You can let Noel go to her bees, and wash up the things yourself.

I have a word or two to say." " Of course, Nicole ! Child, run away to the garden, and see what the bees want, and the worms (silkworms) ; your father and I have business. And, Noel," she caded after her, as the girl, nothing loath, was going out with the dogs, " when you have satisfied the bees, take up the stockings, that your father may have that new pair on Sunday." Noel made her usual graceful acquiescing sign, and vanished with Roi and Rene, shutting the heavy door after her. " She's a good girl, Noel, mother, and what I have to say is about her." " She is well enough, as young girls go," replied the old woman, " but it never does to praise girls any more than it would do to feed them on nougat cake instead of bread. Are you thinking of marrying her, Nicole ? She is young yet ; only a child."

"Noel is over sixteen, mother, and in Provence sixteen is not childhood. Rambert has made a proposal for her to-day. He has been casting sheep's eyes on her wherever he has seen her, ever since he was last on this meadow." " Rambert the cattle-guard ? " exclaimed the old woman, with scant signs of pleasure. " Rambert the cattle-guard ; and what does that look and uplifted hand mean, mother ? " " Why, Nicole, he is like — like the old god Hercules himself, I should think, when, as the nuns used to teach us, all the stones were rained down on the Crau." * " Well, Hercules was a great man in his day, if all tales are true," replied Nicole, with relish of the allu sion. " Now I come to think of it, Rambert is rather * The Crau is a desert of some forty thousand acres of round stones, deposited by the Rhone and Durance at some primeval period below Aries.

It is said to have been the scene of the fight of Hercules and the Ligurians. like Hercules, for there is nothing he sets himself to do that he can't do, and he gets the better of all his enemies, which, if I recollect, Hercules also did. Many a good old Provencal song there is about that Greek and his labours, and the fights with the giants on the Crau. But now, mother, business if you please." " But, Nicole, a cattle-guard ! Why, I would sooner Noel married the saunier Mezas, at Sambuc, than that. Mezas at least has his saltpans and tanks, and land, and a house to live in. Rambert is a wanderer — a rough, brown giant of a fedow, with only some old bicocq of stables for himself, and his aigues, the aigues being perhaps better cared for than himself. I would rather think of Me'zas." " So would not I," replied Nicole, with decision, but without showing the least sharpness at his mother's resistance, for he was too good a Provencal, or, we may rather say, too good a Frenchman, not to reverence his mother's authority, and treat her with the utmost forbearance.