The Christmas Kalends of Provence | Page 8

trumpeters; and a seemly
guard in front and rear of steel-capped and steel-jacketed halbardiers.
All these marching gallantly through the narrow, yet stately, Aix streets;
with comfortable burghers and well-rounded matrons in the doorways
looking on, and pretty faces peeping from upper windows and going all
a-blushing because of the over-bold glances of the men-at-arms! And
then fancy the presentation in the great hall of the castle; and the gay
feasting; and the merry wagging of grey-bearded chins as the
magistrates cried all together, "To the health of the Count!"--and tossed
their wine!
I protest that I grew quite melancholy as I thought how delightful it all
was--and how utterly impossible it all is in these our own dull times! In
truth I never can dwell upon such genially picturesque doings of the
past without feeling that Fate treated me very shabbily in not making
me one of my own ancestors--and so setting me back in that
hard-fighting, gay-going, and eminently light-opera age.
V
As Christmas Day drew near I observed that Misè Fougueiroun walked
thoughtfully and seemed to be oppressed by heavy cares. When I met
her on the stairs or about the passages her eyes had the far-off look of
eyes prying into a portentous future; and when I spoke to her she
recovered her wandering wits with a start. At first I feared that some
grave misfortune had overtaken her; but I was reassured, upon applying
myself to the Vidame, by finding that her seeming melancholy
distraction was due solely to the concentration of all her faculties upon
the preparation of the Christmas feast.
Her case, he added, was not singular. It was the same just then with all
the housewives of the region: for the chief ceremonial event of
Christmas in Provence is the Gros Soupa that is eaten upon Christmas
Eve, and of even greater culinary importance is the dinner that is eaten
upon Christmas Day--wherefore does every woman brood and labour
that her achievement of those meals may realize her high ideal!
Especially does the preparation of the Great Supper compel exhaustive
thought. Being of a vigil, the supper necessarily is "lean"; and custom

has fixed unalterably the principal dishes of which it must be composed.
Thus limited straitly, the making of it becomes a struggle of genius
against material conditions; and its successful accomplishment is
comparable with the perfect presentment by a great poet of some
well-worn elemental truth in a sonnet--of which the triumphant beauty
comes less from the integral concept than from the exquisite felicity of
expression that gives freshness to a hackneyed subject treated in
accordance with severely constraining rules.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the Provençal housewives give the
shortest of the December days to soulful creation in the kitchen, and the
longest of the December nights to searching for inspired culinary
guidance in dreams. They take such things very seriously, those good
women: nor is their seriousness to be wondered at when we reflect that
Saint Martha, of blessed memory, ended her days here in Provence; and
that this notable saint, after delivering the country from the ravaging
Tarasque, no doubt set up in her own house at Tarascon an ideal
standard of housekeeping that still is in force. Certainly, the women of
this region pattern themselves so closely upon their sainted model as to
be even more cumbered with much serving than are womenkind
elsewhere.
Because of the Vidame's desolate bachelorhood, the kindly custom long
ago was established that he and all his household every year should eat
their Great Supper with the farm family at the Mazet; an arrangement
that did not work well until Misè Fougueiroun and Elizo (after some
years of spirited squabbling) came to the agreement that the former
should be permitted to prepare the delicate sweets served for dessert at
that repast. Of these the most important is nougat, without which
Christmas would be as barren in Provence as Christmas would be in
England without plum-pudding or in America without mince-pies.
Besides being sold in great quantities by town confectioners, nougat is
made in most country homes. Even the dwellers on the poor up-land
farms--which, being above the reach of irrigation, yield uncertain
harvests--have their own almond-trees and their own bees to make
them honey, and so possess the raw materials of this necessary luxury.
As for the other sweets, they may be anything that fancy and skill

together can achieve; and it is in this ornate department of the Great
Supper that genius has its largest chance.
But it was the making of the Christmas dinner that mainly occupied
Misè Fougueiroun's mind--a feast pure and simple, governed by the one
jolly law that it shall be the very best dinner of the whole year! What
may be termed its by-laws are that