So Livette was a little distraught. She was thinking of joining Renaud, of being present at the branding, of keeping an eye on her betrothed. Where was he? But Monsieur le curé made a sign: Livette began to sing. Alas! why was not her lover there? Her voice, which she knew was pleasant to the ear, might have some effect on him. How eagerly he listened to the gipsy's singing the other day!--Livette sang, and the buzzing of prayers and litanies and invocations of all sorts, that every one was indulging in on his or her own account, subsided as her clear, pure voice arose. O God! what is this humanity of ours? It is vile and abject, but it has some sense of shame. The basest know how to pray that they may be cured of their baseness. And, however much they may have rolled in the mire of their natural inclinations, a time comes when they set the flame alight, when they burn incense, and when all keep silent to listen to the voice ascending to Heaven, imploring for them a grace that no one knows, that perhaps does not exist, but that every one imagines and desires! "Eat your excrement, dog!" say the gipsies; "what care I? There is a light in the dog's eye that is not often seen in the eyes of kings." Livette sang. The curé said to himself: "O my God, mayhap this child of Thine will obtain favor in Thy sight!" Livette's voice was as fresh as the water of salvation for which the assembled multitude thirsted. And how intently they listened! But, at the end of each stanza, weary of restraining their tumultuous ejaculations of hope, they sent up from thousands of throats an inarticulate roar in which only the two words: _Saintes Maries!_ could be distinguished. Livette sang: "Quand vous étiez sur la grande eau, Sans rames à votre bateau, Saintes Maries! Rien que la mer, rien que les cieux---- Vous appeliez de tous vos yeux La douceur des plages fleuries."[9] "_Saintes Maries!_" roared the people; uttered at the same moment by a thousand voices acting upon a common impulse, the frenzied appeal was like an explosion.