He announced the calm and the tempest, the disastrous hurricanes of the _mistraon_, as the northwester was named in Provence, the gentle, fruitful rains of the _miegion_, or south wind, and the violent tornado of the _labechades_, or wind from the southwest; in fact, the form of the clouds, the soft or brilliant azure of the sky, the various colours of the sea, and all those vague, deep, and undefined noises which occasionally spring up in the midst of the silence of the elements were for him so many evident signs, from which he deduced the most infallible conclusions. Never a captain of a merchantman, never a cockswain of a bark, put to sea without having consulted Master Peyrou. Men ordinarily surround with a sort of superstitious reverence and halo those who live apart from the rest of the world. Peyrou was no exception to the rule. As his predictions about the weather were almost invariably realised, the inhabitants of La Ciotat and the environs soon persuaded themselves that a man who knew so much of the things in the sky could not be ignorant of the things on the earth. Without passing exactly as a sorcerer, the hermit of the cape of L’Aigle, consulted in so many important circumstances, became the depositary of many secrets. A dishonest man would have cruelly abused this power, but Peyrou took advantage of it to encourage, sustain, and defend the good, and to accuse, confound, and intimidate the wicked. A practical philosopher, he felt that his opinion, his predictions, and his threats would lose much if their authority was not supported by a certain cabalistic display; hence, although he did so with reluctance, he accompanied each opinion with a mysterious formula. The excellent spy-glass was a marvellous aid to his power of divination. Not only did he turn it to the horizon in order to discover the chebecs and piratical vessels of Barbary, but he directed it to the little town of La Ciotat,--on the houses, the fields, and the beach,--and thus surprised many secrets and mysteries, and by this means increased the reverence he inspired. Peyrou, however, was altogether above the vulgar sorcerer by his entire disinterestedness. Had he some honest poverty to befriend, he ordered one of his wealthier clients to put a moderate offering in some secret spot which he indicated; the poor client, informed by Peyrou, went to the spot and found the mysterious alms. Instigated by a blind zeal, the priests of the diocese of Marseilles wished to criminate the mysterious life of Peyrou, but the surrounding population immediately assumed such a menacing attitude, and the town council bore such testimony to the excellence of the watchman’s character, that he was permitted to live his solitary life in peace.