Then, alas! came quickly, one on the heels of the other, war, defeat, revolution, and siege, followed by the Commune and its devil’s train. The foolish Montelaise, lost in it all as a bird in the tempest, intoxicated by the smoke, the whirl, the favour of the populace, sang to them “Marianne” like a little demon. She would have sung in the water--still better in the fire. One day a riot surrounded her in the street and carried her off like a straw to the palace of the Tuileries. The reigning populace were giving a fête in the Imperial salon. Arms, black with powder, seized “Marianne”--for Madame Bordas was Marianne to them--and mounted her on the throne in the midst of red flags. “Sing to us,” they cried, “the last song that shall echo round the walls of this accursed palace.” And the little Montelaise, with a red cap on her fair hair, sang--“La Canaille.” A formidable cry of “Long live the Republic!” followed the last refrain, and a solitary voice, lost in the crowd, sang out in answer, “Vivo Sant Gènt.” Rose could not see for the tears which brimmed in her blue eyes and she became pale as death. “Open, give her air!” they cried, seeing that she was about to faint. Ah no! poor Rose, it was not air she needed, it was Monteux, it was Saint Gent in the mountains and the innocent joy of the fêtes of Provence. The crowd, in the meanwhile, with its red flags went off shouting through the open door. Over Paris, louder and louder, thundered the cannonade, sinister noises ran along the streets, prolonged fusillades were heard in the distance, the smell of petroleum was overpowering, and before very long tongues of fire mounted from the Tuileries up to the sky. Poor little Montelaise! No one ever heard of her again. (_Almanach Provençal_, 1873.) THE POPULAR MAN The Mayor of Gigognan invited me, last year, to his village festivity. We had been for seven years comrades of the ink-horn at the school of Avignon, but since then had never met. “By the blessing of God,” he cried on seeing me, “thou art just the same, lively as a blue-bottle, handsome as a new penny--straight as an arrow--I would have known thee in a thousand.” “Yes, I am just the same,” I replied, “only my sight is a little shorter, my temples a little wrinkled, my hair a little whitened, and--when there is snow on the hills, the valleys are seldom hot.” “Bah!” said he, “my dear boy, the old bull runs on a straight track, only he who desires it grows old. Come, come to dinner.” According to time-honoured custom a village fête in Provence is the occasion for real feasting, and my friend Lassagne had not failed to prepare such a lordly feast as one might set before a king. Dressed lobster, fresh trout from the Sorgue, nothing but fine meats and choice wines, a little glass to whet the appetite at intervals, besides liqueurs of all sorts, and to wait on us at table a young girl of twenty who--I will say no more!