“Ventour.” A high mountain to the northeast of Avignon, abruptly rising 6,440 feet above the level of the sea, isolated, steep, visible forty leagues off, and for six months of the year capped with snow. ↩
“Notre Dame des Doms.” The cathedral church at Avignon, where the Popes formerly officiated. ↩
“Faneto de Gautèume.” Janette, abridged from Estèfanette, of the noble family of Gautèume, or Gautelme, presided, about the year 1340, over the Court of Love at Roumanin. Courts of Love are known to have been poetical assizes, at which the noblest, most beautiful, and most learned ladies in Gay-saber decided on questions of gallantry and love, and awarded prizes for Provençal poetry. The celebrated and lovely Laura was niece to Fanette de Gautelme, and a member of her graceful areopagus. The ruins of the Castle of Roumanin may still be seen, not far from St. Rémy, at the foot of the northern slope of the Lower Alps. ↩
“Countess Dio.” A celebrated poetess of the middle of the twelfth century. Such of her poems as have come down to us contain strains more impassioned, and occasionally more voluptuous, than those of Sappho. ↩
The vampire, or roumeso, is thus described in the Castagnados of the Marquis Lafare Alais:—
“Sus vint arpo d’aragno
S’ecasso soun cars brun.
Soun ventre que regagno
Di fèbre e de magagno
Suso l’arre frescun.”
That is, “On twenty spider-legs its brown body, as on stilts, is mounted; its belly swelled with fever and rottenness; the horrid odor thereof exudes.” ↩
The Luberon, or Luberoun, is a mountain-chain in the department of Vaucluse. ↩
The Vaumasco (from Vau and Masco, Valley of Sorcerers) is a valley of the Luberoun, formerly inhabited by the Vaudois. ↩
The song of Magali belongs to the class of poems called aubado—music performed under a window in early morning, as a serenade is in the evening. ↩
A portico. Within half an hour’s walk from St. Rémy, at the foot of the Alpines, arise side by side two fine Roman monuments. One is a triumphal arch; the other, a magnificent mausoleum, of three stories, adorned with rich bas-reliefs and surmounted by a graceful cupola, supported by ten Corinthian pillars, through which are discerned two statues in a standing attitude. They are the last vestiges of Glanum, a Marseilles colony destroyed by the Barbarians. ↩
Sambu, a hamlet in the territory of Arles, in the isle of Camargue. ↩
Camargue is a vast delta, formed by the bifurcation of the Rhône. The island extends from Arles to the sea, and comprises 184,482¼ acres. The immensity of its horizon, the awful silence of its level plain, its strange vegetation, meres, swarms of mosquitos, large herds of oxen and wild horses, amaze the traveller, and remind him of the Pampas of South America. ↩
Vacarès, a large assemblage of salt-ponds, lagoons, and moors in the isle of Camargue. “Vacarès” is formed of the word vaco and the Provençal desinence arés or eirés, indicating union, generality. It means a place where cows abound. ↩
Veranet is the diminutive of Veran. ↩
Petite Camargue, also called Sóuvage, is bounded on the east by the Petit Rhône, which separates it from Grande Camargue, on the south by the Mediterranean, and on the west and north by the Rhône Mort and the Aigui Morte canal. It is the principal resort of the wild black oxen. ↩
Faraman and Ambaroun are hamlets in Camargue. Aigui Morto is in the department of the Gard. It was at the port of this town that St. Louis twice embarked for the Holy Land. Here also Francis I and Charles V had an interview in 1579. ↩
Centaury and Salicorne. The Centaurea solstitialis, a species of star-thistle, abounds in the fields of Crau after harvest. Salicornia fructicosa is a species of samphire. ↩
Tamarisk, the Tamarix gallica of Linnaeus. ↩
Sylvaréal, a forest of parasol-pines in Petite Camargue. ↩
“Columbine,” the name of a large and superior sort of grape. ↩
Oulympe, or Oulimpe, is a lofty mountain on the boundary-line of the Var and Bouches-du-Rhône. ↩
Queiras, a valley of the Upper Alps. ↩
Penduline, Motacilla pendulina. ↩
Eel-grass, Valisneria spiralis of Linnaeus. ↩
“Moon-wheat,” blad de luno. Faire de blad de luno signifies, literally, to rob parents of their wheat by moonlight. Figuratively, it is used for lovemaking on the sly. ↩
Goose-foot, Chenopadium fructicum of Linnaeus. ↩
Jan de l’Ours is a storybook hero, a kind of Provençal Hercules, to whom many exploits are attributed. He was the son of a shepherdess and a bear, and had for companions in his exploits two adventurers of marvellous strength. The name of the one was Arrache Montagne; that of the other, Pierre de Moulin. ↩
This bridge is the Roman antiquity known as the “Pont du Gard.” ↩
Green heron, Ardea virides. ↩
Sainte Baume, a grotto in the midst of a virgin forest near St. Maximin, to which Ste. Magdalene used to repair, to do penance. ↩
Trincataio is a suburb of Arles, in Camargue, united to the town by a bridge of boats. The water-sprites, or trevi, were said to dance on the tips of the waves by the light of the sun or moon. ↩
