It was in the autumn of this year 1855 that the first cloud overshadowed my happy youth. It was the sorrow of losing my father. He had become quite blind, and as far back as the previous Christmas we had been anxious about him. For on that occasion he whom the festival had always filled with joy, this year seemed overcome by a deep depression which we felt augured badly for the future. It was in vain that as usual we lit the three sacred candles and spread the table with the three white cloths; in vain that I offered him the mulled wine, hoping to hear from his lips the sacramental “Good cheer.” Groping, alas! with his long thin arms, he seated himself with never a word. In vain also my mother tried to tempt him with the dishes of Christmas, one after the other--the plate of snails, the fish of Martique, the almond nougat, the cake of oil. Wrapt in pensive thought the poor old man supped in silence. A shadow, a forerunner of death, was over him, and his blindness oppressed him. Once he looked up and spoke. “Last year at Christmas I could still see the light of the candles; but this year, nothing, nothing. Help me, O blessed Virgin.” In the first days of September he departed this life. Having received the last sacrament with sincerity and faith, the strong faith of simple souls, he turned to his family, who all stood weeping around his bed: “Come, come, my children,” he said to us. “I am going--and to God I give thanks for all that I owe him: my long life and my labour, which He has blessed.” Then he called me to him and asked: “Frédéric, what sort of weather is it?” “It rains, my father,” I replied. “Ah well,” he said, “if it rains it its good for the seeds.” Then he gave up his soul to God. I can never forget that moment! They covered his head with the sheet, and near the bed, that big bed in the white alcove where in broad daylight I had been born, they lit a long pale taper. The shutters of the room were half closed. The labourers were ordered to unyoke at once. The maid, in the kitchen, turned over the cauldrons and pots on the dresser. Around the ashes of the fire, which had been extinguished, we seated ourselves in a silent circle, my mother at the corner of the big chimney, bearing, according to the custom of the widows of Provence, as sign of mourning, a white fichu on her head. And all day the neighbours, men and [Illustration: THÉRÈSE ROUMANILLE (MADAME BOISSIÈRE), 2ND QUEEN OF THE FÉLIBRES.] women, relations and friends, came to offer us their sympathy, greeting us one after another with the customary “May our Lord preserve you!” And lengthily, piously, they went through the condolences in honour of the “poor master.” The next day all Maillane assisted at the funeral ceremony; and in their prayers for him, the poor added always: “God grant that as many angels may accompany him to heaven as he has given us loaves of bread!”