[5] What would the good curé have said had he been told that a contemporary poet, Monsieur Pierre Gauthiez, has adopted the too common error? According to him, an Egyptian Marie came to Camargue in the boat with the saints.--When they approached the shore, it became necessary to reward the devoted boatman who had helped them to accomplish the prodigious journey. One of them gave him a sprig of rosemary that had touched the lips of the Christ; another, a lock of her fair hair. And as to the third-- "L'Égyptienne au doux oeil sombre, Debout auprès d'un olivier, Regarda le beau batelier. "Elle prit son voile de lin, Et découvrit sa chair de vierge Pure et luisante, ainsi qu'un cierge, Sous le soleil à son déclin. Elle fut toute nue, et comme Sur le sable roux, le jeune homme S'agenouillait, la lèvre en feu, Tendant ses bras comme vers Dieu, La sainte, sans robe ni voiles, Pareille aux célestes étoiles, Lui dit: 'Tu vois, mon batelier, Je n'ai que Moi pour te payer!'" (Translation.) "The Egyptian of the soft dark eye, standing beside an olive-tree, gazed upon the comely boatman. "She put aside her linen veil and discovered her virgin flesh, all pure and glistening, like a wax taper, beneath the setting sun. She was quite naked, and, as the young man knelt on the red sand, with lips on fire, holding out his arms to her as if to God, the saint, like the stars in heaven, wearing no gown or veil, said to him: 'Thou seest, my boatman, I have naught but Myself wherewith to pay thee!'" [6] The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak. [7] The _tarasque_, perhaps, is nothing more than a reproduction of the crocodile of the Rhône, increased in size to an absurd degree by the popular imagination. This one, the last that was seen in Camargue, so they say, is hanging to-day in the _Hôpital des Antiquailles_ at Lyon, with an inscription stating the source from whence it came: "Gift of M. le Curé of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer." [8] _C'est le sort._--_Sort_ may mean _fate_, and it may also mean _spell_, being used in the latter sense almost synonymously with _sortilège_. It may also mean _chance_. [9] "When you were upon the great deep, without oars to row your boat, Saintes Maries! Naught but the sea and sky about you--with all your eyes you appealed to the verdant shore to be gentle." [10] "Beneath the sun, beneath the stars, with sails made of the gowns you wore--Sail on, O ship!--seven days and nights you sailed and sailed and saw no vessel, large or small--naught but the sea and the great deep!" [11] "God, who makes of a lightning-flash His scourge, wherewith to scourge the sky and sea, Saintes Maries! guided the bark to a safe harbor--an angel, who appeared on board, pointed out the way to the verdant shore." [12] "Kneeling before God's tabernacle, we, stained with sin from birth, do invoke your power, for whom God performed this miracle--Holy women, protect us!"