And Jean Roussière would enumerate all the places on the two banks; the inns, the hostesses, the streams, the sluices, the roads and the fords from Arles to the Revestidou, from the Coucourde to the Ermitage. But his greatest happiness and triumph was at the feast of Saint-Eloi. “I will show your Maillanais,” he said, “if they have not already seen it, how we ride a little mule!” Saint-Eloi is, in Provence, the feast of the agriculturists. All over Provence on that day the village priests bless the cattle, asses, mules and horses; and the people owning the beasts partake of the “blessed bread,” that excellent “blessed bread” flavoured with aniseed and yellow with eggs, which they call _tortillarde_. At Maillane it was our custom on that day to deck a chariot with green boughs and harness to it forty or fifty beasts, caparisoned as in the time of the tournaments, with beards, embroidered saddle-cloths, plumes, mirrors and crescents of brass. The whip was put up to auction, that is to say, the office of Prior was put up to public auction: “Thirty francs for the whip!--a hundred francs!--two hundred francs! Once--twice--thrice!” The presidency of the feast fell to the highest bidder. The chariot of green boughs led the procession, a cavalcade of joyful labourers, each one walking proudly near his own horse or mule, and cracking his whip. In the chariot, accompanied by the musicians playing the tambourine and flute, the Prior was seated. On the mules, fathers placed their little ones astride, the latter holding on happily to the trappings. The horses’ collars were all ornamented with a cake of the blessed bread, in the form of a crown, and a pennon in paper bearing a picture of Saint-Eloi; and carried on the shoulders of the Priors of the past years was an image of the saint, in full glory, like a golden bishop, the crozier in his hand. Drawn by the fifty mules or donkeys round the village rolled the chariot, in a cloud of dust, with the farm labourers running like mad by the side of their beasts, all in their shirt sleeves, hats at the back of their heads, a belt round the waist, and low shoes. That year Jean Roussière, mounting our mule Falette, astonished the spectators. Light as a cat, he jumped on the animal, then off again, remounted, now sitting on one side, now standing upright on the crupper, there in turn doing the goose step, the forked tree and the frog, on the mule’s back--in short, giving a sort of Arab horseman’s performance. But where he shone with even greater lustre was at the supper of Saint-Eloi, for after the chariot procession the Priors give a feast. Every one having eaten and drunk their fill and said grace, Roussière rose and addressed the company. “Comrades! Here you are, a crowd of good-for-nothings and rascals, who have kept the Saint-Eloi for the past thousand years, and yet I will wager none of you know the history of your great patron.”