Madame de Sévigné was wrong when she said: “I prefer the gamesomeness of the Bretons to the perfumed idleness of the Provençaux;” at least she was wrong in her estimate of the Provençaux, for her interests and her loves were ever in the north, at Château Grignan and elsewhere, in spite of her familiarity with Provence. She has some hard things to say also of the “mistral,” the name given to that dread north wind of the Rhône valley, one of the three plagues of Provence; but again she exaggerates. The “terrible mistral” is not always so terrible as it has been pictured. It does not always blow, nor, when it does come, does it blow for a long period, not even for the proverbial three, six, or nine days; but it is, nevertheless, pretty general along the whole south coast of France. It is the complete reverse of the sirocco of the African coast, the wind which blows hot from the African desert and makes the coast cities of Oran, Alger, and Constantine, and even Biskra, farther inland, the delightful winter resorts which they are. In summer the “mistral,” when it blows, makes the coast towns and cities of the mouth of the Rhône, and even farther to the east and west, cool and delightful even in the hottest summer months, and it always has a great purifying and healthful influence. Ordinarily the “mistral” is faithful to tradition, but for long months in the winter of 1905-06 it only appeared at Marseilles, and then only to disappear again immediately. The Provençal used to pray to be preserved from Æolus, son of Jupiter, but this particular season the god had forsaken all Provence. From the 31st of August to the 4th of September it blew with all its wonted vigour, with a violence which lifted roof-tiles and blew all before it, but until the first of the following March it made only fitful attempts, many of which expired before they were born. There were occasions when it rose from its torpor and ruffled the waves of the blue Mediterranean into the white horses of the poets, but it immediately retired as if shorn of its former strength. “_C’est humiliant_,” said the observer at the meteorological bureau at Marseilles, as he shut up shop and went out for his _apéritif_. All Provence was marvelling at the strange anomaly, and really seemed to regret the absence of the “mistral,” though they always cursed it loudly when it was present--all but the fisherfolk of the Étang de Berre and the old men who sheltered themselves on the sunny side of a wall and made the best use possible of the “_cheminée du Roi René_,” as the old pipe-smokers call the glorious sun of the south, which never seems so bright and never gives out so much warmth as when the “mistral” blows its hardest.