Provence winter

This post is mainly about Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin, but it starts with Sir Walter Scott.

 It was late in the autumn, and about the period when the southeastern counties of France rather show to least advantage. The foliage of the olive-tree is then decayed and withered, and as it predominates in the landscape and resembles the scorched complexion of the soil itself, an ashen and arid hue is given to the whole. Still, however, there were scenes in the hilly and pastoral parts of the country, where the quantity of evergreens relieved the eye even in this dead season.   (Sir Walter Scott, Anne of Geierstein (1829), Ch.XXIX)

Scott is making up this information, to some extent. Olive trees are evergreen. Leaves last 2-3 years and the older ones are usually shed in April, at the same time that new leaves are developing. (But it's quite true that in autumn there's often a greyish tint to foliage and land alike.) 

Vincent van Gogh painted a famous series of olive-tree studies in 1889 while in the asylum at St-Rémy-de-Provence, many of them from this "dead season".

Olive Trees, painting by Vincent van Gogh (November 1889)

[Image source: Wikipedia . In the National Gallery of Scotland.]

The White Cottage among the Olive Trees, painting by Vincent van Gogh (December, 1889)

[Image source: Wikipedia . The painting is in a private collection.]

Grande rumeur au château. Le messager vient d’apporter un mot du garde, moitié en français, moitié en provençal, annonçant qu’il y a eu déjà deux ou trois beaux passages de galéjons, de charlottines, et que les oiseaux de prime non plus ne manquaient pas.

   « Vous êtes des nôtres ! » m’ont écrit mes aimables voisins ; et ce matin, au petit jour de cinq heures, leur grand break, chargé de fusils, de chiens, de victuailles, est venu me prendre au bas de la côte. Nous voilà roulant sur la route d’Arles, un peu sèche, un peu dépouillée, par ce matin de décembre où la verdure pâle des oliviers est à peine visible, et la verdure crue des chênes-kermès un peu trop hivernale et factice. Les étables se remuent. Il y a des réveils avant le jour qui allument la vitre des fermes ; et dans les découpures de pierre de l’abbaye de Montmajour, des orfraies encore engourdies de sommeil battent de l’aile parmi les ruines. Pourtant nous croisons déjà le long des fossés de vieilles paysannes qui vont au marché au trot de leurs bourriquets. Elles viennent de la Ville-des-Baux. Six grandes lieues pour s’asseoir une heure sur les marches de Saint-Trophyme et vendre des petits paquets de simples ramassés dans la montagne !…

Much excitement at the chateau. The messenger has just brought word from the keeper, half in French and half in Provençal, saying there's already been two or three good flights of galéjons (=herons), of charlottines (=Black-tailed Godwits), and there's no lack of the oiseaux de prime (birds of spring).

   "You're coming with us!" my amiable neighbours wrote to me ; and this morning in the half-light of five o'clock their big wagon, filled with guns, dogs and provisions, has arrived to take me down to the coast. So here we are rolling along the road to Arles, a bit arid, a bit bare, on this December morning when the pale foliage of the olive trees is scarcely visible, and the harsh green leaves of the Kermes oaks seem a bit too wintry and false. The stables are stirring, and early risers light up the windows in the farms ; and in the gaps among the stones of the Abbey of Montmajour, some ospreys, still heavy with sleep, beat their wings among the ruins. Yet we're already meeting old peasant women on their way to market, clopping along in their donkey carts. They come from Ville-des-Baux. Six long leagues just to sit down for an hour on the steps of Saint-Trophyme and sell their little packets of simples gathered on the mountain!

(Alphonse Daudet, the opening of "En Camargue" (1873), included in the definitive 1879 edition of Lettres de mon moulin (first edition 1869))

From a 1904 illustrated edition of Lettres de mon moulin

[Ville-des-Baux, now known as Les Baux-de-Provence, is a mountain village amidst a ruined fortress that occupies a spectacular position on the Alpilles, east of Arles. (Not far, as the crow flies, from van Gogh's asylum at Saint-Rémy.) There's another (absurdly different) view of it here: https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2022/02/les-baux.html . ]

Full French text of Lettres de mon moulin: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Lettres_de_mon_moulin/Texte_entier .

English translation by Mireille Harmelin and Keith Adams, on Gutenberg.

Here's an extract from later in "En Camargue", with their translation:

Mais c’est l’après-midi surtout que la cabane est charmante. Par nos belles journées d’hiver méridional, j’aime rester tout seul près de la haute cheminée où fument quelques pieds de tamaris. Sous les coups du mistral ou de la tramontane, la porte saute, les roseaux crient, et toutes ces secousses sont un bien petit écho du grand ébranlement de la nature autour de moi. Le soleil d’hiver fouetté par l’énorme courant s’éparpille, joint ses rayons, les disperse. De grandes ombres courent sous un ciel bleu admirable. La lumière arrive par saccades, les bruits aussi ; et les sonnailles des troupeaux entendues tout à coup, puis oubliées, perdues dans le vent, reviennent chanter sous la porte ébranlée avec le charme d’un refrain… L’heure exquise, c’est le crépuscule, un peu avant que les chasseurs n’arrivent. Alors le vent s’est calmé. Je sors un moment. En paix le grand soleil rouge descend, enflammé, sans chaleur. La nuit tombe, vous frôle en passant de son aile noire tout humide. Là-bas, au ras du sol, la lumière d’un coup de feu passe avec l’éclat d’une étoile rouge avivée par l’ombre environnante. Dans ce qui reste de jour, la vie se hâte. Un long triangle de canards vole très bas, comme s’ils voulaient prendre terre ; mais tout à coup la cabane, où le caleil est allumé, les éloigne : celui qui tient la tête de la colonne dresse le cou, remonte, et tous les autres derrière lui s’emportent plus haut avec des cris sauvages.

In the afternoon, the shack is especially charming. Throughout our beautiful, southern winter days, I enjoy being alone by the tall mantelpiece, while several twigs of tamarisk smoke away in the hearth. The howling mistral or tramontana makes the doors bang, the reeds scream, and a range of noises that make the great, natural clamour all around. The rays of the winter sun gather and are then scattered by the fierce wind. Great shadows race around under a perfect blue sky. The light comes in flashes, and the noise in crashes, and the flock's bells are suddenly heard, then lost in the wind, only to emerge again under the rattling door like a charming refrain…. Twilight, just before the hunters come back, is the most exquisite time of day. By then the wind has moderated. I go out for a moment; the great red sun, at peace at last, goes down in flames, but without heat. Night falls and brushes you with its damp, black wing as it passes over. Somewhere, at ground level, there is a bang, a flash, as the red star of a rifle shot bursts into the surrounding blackness. What is left of the day rushes past. A long flight of ducks flies by, low, as if looking for somewhere to land; but suddenly, catching sight of the cabin where the fire is lit, they take fright. The one at the head rises, and the rest follow as they fly away screaming.

I don't see that there would have been any light at all at 05:00 in December: sunrise at Arles isn't until 08:00. Lettres de mon moulin is "un peu factice", like the winter leaves of the Kermes oak; also like Anne of Geierstein and indeed most other books. Writers need to tweak things to allow their creations to come forth. 

The book begins with "the poet Alphonse Daudet" (1840-1897) buying a ruined windmill in Provence, as a bolt-hole from his life in Paris. And the subsequent letters (tales, stories and accounts) were, we are to imagine, written in and about that romantic location. 

The windmill that inspired Daudet's framework was at Fontvieille.  Fontvieille is indeed on the road from Les-Baux to Arles, as described in the opening to "En Camargue". 

Daudet got to know the windmill during visits to Fontvieille. He actually stayed at the Château de Montauban, home of his Ambroy cousins. Daudet had been born in Nîmes but had thoroughly embraced Parisian life. These sojourns in Provence, like those in Corsica and Algeria, arose from his doctor's advice: Daudet, still in his early twenties, was already showing symptoms of syphilis. 

In Trente ans de Paris he admits that he never did purchase the ruined windmill (though he thought about it), but he often spent whole days up there. 

The windmill that's now known as "Daudet's windmill" was built in 1815; it had the names "Ribet" and "Saint Pierre". From 1935 it housed a Daudet museum (moved to the Château de Montauban in 2012) and in 2016, following renovations, it was re-opened to visitors.

Provence is a windy place, ideal for windmills until the new steam mills took away the trade (as described in "Le secret de Maître Cornille"). In winter the Mistral blows from the north west and the Tramontane from the north, both seeming to gather force in the lower part of the Rhône valley.

In fact, there were four windmills in Fontvieille back in the early 1860s, and we don't know which one Daudet frequented, but it almost certainly wasn't Ribet/Saint Pierre, because unlike the other mills it wasn't ruinous. It remained a working mill for a further fifty years, closing down during the First World War. (The other mills were called Tissot-Avon, Ramet and Sourdon; I've heard it claimed that Daudet's windmill was actually Tissot.)  Ironically, but pragmatically, the townsfolk chose Ribet because it was the best preserved!

Anyway, Daudet composed virtually all of the Lettres back in Paris. They aren't letters, even formally, but it's a fertile suggestion. They are pieces in many genres. Somewhat like the Canterbury Tales, each piece has its own form and style, they are not all of equal weight, but the overall effect is of dazzling riches, of a book you can't easily be done with. There is some reference to the windmill location in most of the stories, though they are not all about Provence. 

*

Here's a list of the contents of the definitive 1879 edition of Lettres de mon moulin. (The dates are 1. the date of first publication 2. the date of first incorporation into the collected Lettres -- either 1869 or 1879.)

Avant-Propos (1869) A deed of sale of the ruined windmill to "Alphonse Daudet, poète"; the notary comically shrugging his shoulders over the perversity of the purchase.  

Installation (1868, 1869) Lyrically and fondly describes the author taking up residence in the old mill, and then a homecoming of the flocks and shepherds and dogs from their summer mountain pastures. (Their "installation" back in the farm.)

La Diligence de Beaucaire  (1868, 1869) Harsh anecdote of the last leg of the author's journey to his new home. A Beaucaire baker cruelly taunts another coach passenger, the cuckolded rémouleur (grinder). 

Le Secret de Maître Cornille   (1866, 1869) The old fife-player Francet Mamaï tells the story of the region's decline and of its last proud miller, who pretended to maintain a flourishing trade, though he no longer had any customers. When this is discovered, the local people are touched and come flocking back to him, but when he dies his mill (Daudet's mill) falls silent for ever.

La Chèvre de M. Seguin   (1866, 1869) Animal fable of a goat who cannot resist the lure of freedom, though it leads to the wolf eating her. (Supposed to be addressed to an improvident fellow-artist, who has just rejected the idea of working as a journalist.)

Les Étoiles  (1873, 1879)  An old shepherd recounts an episode from his youth, when the beautiful master's daughter spent an innocent night with him under the stars.

L'Arlésienne  (1866, 1869) Stark tale of a tragic farm; the eldest boy's hapless love for the flighty Arlésienne and his subsequent suicide. (Daudet later turned it into a play. It wasn't a hit but is remembered for Bizet's music. In France the "Arlésienne" has become proverbial for a title character who is absent or nearly absent from the actual story.)

La Mule du pape  (1868, 1869) Supposedly in explanation of a local expression about long-held grievances. Colourful tale of medieval Avignon and a bon viveur Pope. His magnificent mule is secretly ill-treated by a mischievous hanger-on; seven year later, the mule takes its revenge. 

Le Phare des Sanguinaires  (1869, 1869) With the mistral keeping the author awake, he remembers his stay at an island off Corsica containing only a lighthouse. The keepers' tales: e.g the sudden death of a co-keeper while stuck there in winter.

L'Agonie de la Sémillante  (1866, 1869) Another Corsican memory: the author hears about the dreadful wreck of a troop ship, with no survivors. (It really happened, on the 15th February 1855.) He reconstructs the ship's last hours. 

Les Douaniers  (1873, 1879) Corsica again. The sad death of the merry sailor Palombo, at a miserable customs post on a Corsican beach.

Le Curé de Cucugnan  (1866, 1869) Translated from the Provençal of Joseph Roumanille (1818-1891). A comic story in which the local priest delivers a sermon to his unregenerate flock, telling them that he has visited the afterlife in a dream and discovered to his horror that they are all on the way to hell. The congregation are duly impressed, and the virtue of Cucugnan becomes proverbial. 

Les Vieux  (1868, 1869) A Paris friend asks Daudet to pay a visit to his aged relatives (he can never be bothered to visit them himself). A touching account of their rapturous reception of "l'ami de Maurice" and their blind belief in Maurice's virtues. 

Ballades en prose  (1866, 1869) Two "ballades": "La Mort du Dauphin", somewhat like a fairy tale, describes the dying boy's naive discovery that his royal blood won't preserve him; and "Le Sous-Préfet aux champs", in which the functionary yields to the delights of nature and forgets all about the pompous speech he's meant to be writing.

Le Portefeuille de Bixiou  (1868, 1869)  "One October morning, a few days before I left Paris...". The formidable satirist Bixiou has gone blind and no longer has the heart for the work that made him famed and feared. The emptiness and sadness of his life. 

La Légende de l'homme à la cervelle d'or  (1866, 1869) Another cautionary tale of rapacious Paris, but more fantastic in form. Its hero has a brain made of solid gold. He's unable to resist digging out the invaluable nuggets from his brain, until there's nothing left. 

Le Poète Mistral  (1866, 1869) One gloomy Sunday the author visits the Provençal poet Mistral at Maillane (near Saint-Rémy), hears him read from his new poem Calendal and joins in the rumbustious village feast. [Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1904. Provençal is a form of Occitan. Without official status in France, Occitan as a spoken language is in precipitous decline.] 

Les Trois Messes basses  (1875, 1879) Comic tale of a sixteenth-century prior who is tempted by the devil's luscious descriptions of the forthcoming Christmas feast into hurrying through the three masses of Christmas Eve. In the afterlife he's condemned to delivering three hundred midnight masses (at the chapel on Mont Ventoux) before he can enter Paradise.

Les Oranges   (1873, 1879) A fanciful meditation on oranges: the orange in Paris (it was associated with the Christmas season); a rare snowfall in an orchard in Algeria; superb oranges in Corsica.

Les Deux Auberges   (1869, 1869) Two coaching inns lie opposite each other; one bustling, the other lifeless. The author talks to the landlady of the second inn, afflicted by tragedy. Even her husband is across the road, flirting with the beauty from Arles. 

À Milianah   (1864, 1869) An ironic, helterskelter account of a day in an Algerian town. Daudet's presentation of both Jews and Muslims is somewhat cool and dispiriting, compared with the warmth he shows  towards Provençals and Corsicans. 

Les Sauterelles   (1873, 1879) Description of a locust storm in the Sahel (here meaning the Algerian coast).

L'Élixir du révérend père Gaucher  (1869, 1869) The author is told a comic tale by a priest: how the cowherd Gaucher helps an impoverished monastery recover its fortunes by distilling a liqueur from mountain herbs. Gaucher becomes increasingly addicted to his creation, is apt to break into indecent songs, and begs to give up the work for the sake of his soul, but the rest of the monastery are terrified about losing their income stream.

En Camargue   (1873, 1879)  Lyrical description (in five sections) of hunting on the Camargue; the life of the keepers; the cattle during the mistral . . .

Nostalgie de casernes    (1866, 1869)  A sort of epilogue. The author wakes to the sound of drum-rolls just outside the windmill. A drummer, on leave in his native Provence, is bored and misses his barracks in Paris. And the author admits that he, too, is longing to get back to his Paris life.