Nor is his verse, of its curious kind, less excellent than his music. By turns, as the humour takes him, his noels are sermons, or delicate religious fancies, or sharp-pointed satires, or whimsical studies of country-side life. One whole series of seven is a history of the Nativity (surely the quaintest and the gayest and the tenderest oratorio that ever was written!) in which, in music and in words, he is at his very best. Above all, his noels are local. His background always is his own country; his characters--Micolau the big shepherd, gossip Guihaumeto, Toni, Christou, and the rest--always are Provencaux: wearing Provencaux pink-bordered jackets, and white hats bedizened with ribbons, and marching to Bethlehem to the sound of the _galoubet_ and _tambourin_. It is from Avignon, out by the Porte Saint Lazare, that the start for Bethlehem is made by his pilgrim company; the Provencal music plays to cheer them; they stamp their feet and swing their arms about, because the mistral is blowing and they are desperately cold. It is a simplicity half laughable, half pathetic--such as is found in those Mediaeval pictures which represent the Apostles or the Holy Family in the garb of the artist's own time and country, and above the walls of Bethlehem the church spire of his own town. This naive local twist is not peculiar to Saboly. With very few exceptions all Provencal noels are packed full of the same delightful anachronisms. It is to Provencal shepherds that the Herald Angel appears; it is Provencaux who compose the _bregado_, the pilgrim company, that starts for Bethlehem; and Bethlehem is a village, always within easy walking distance, here in Provence. Yet it is not wholly simplicity that has brought about this shifting of the scene of the Nativity from the hill country of Judaea to the hill country of Southeastern France. The life and the look of the two lands have much in common; and most impressively will their common character be felt by one who walks here by night beneath the stars.