were half-hidden, by clustering vines. A
vineyard, itself, is not ordinarily inviting to the sight.
In its picturesque aspect it exists only in the
imagination of scene-painters, in the engravings
of defunct landscape annuals, and in the fancy
performances, in oil and water colours, sent
every year to exhibitions. For real beauty, I
will match a Kentish hop garden, or a Twickenham
orchard, against the most luxuriant vineyard
in the sunny south. We say little about the
south being chronically stormy as well as sunny.
It is only on the banks of the Rhine, where the
grapes grow in terraces, one above the other, to
the very tops of the hills, that a wine-bearing
district assumes a romantic look. It is the
same with olive-trees. Olives in their saline
solution, popularly, but erroneously, supposed
to be sea-water, are very nice to eat with your
claret, and very nice to talk or sing about
in ballad poetry; but a plantation of olive-trees
is, next to a field of mangold-wurzel, about the
ugliest object in nature you can come across.
Hemp beats it. Flax beats it. Clover demolishes
it utterly, in an artistic sense. The vines, however,
that cluster beneath the cottage roof, and
the olives that grow in the front garden, are certainly
charming; and Marouille-le-Geiicy had an
abundance of both.

The little river Bâve, one of the tributaries of
the Rhône, ran right across the village street,
and the villagers were great people for clean
linen. They were even given to washing themselves
as well as their clothes: a strange thing
in the south. The village was girt about with
real orange-groves. There was an abundance of
myrtles. The entrance to the hamlet was planted
with gigantic plants of the cactus tribe. The
rarest and most beautiful flowers grew nearly all
the year in the open air. Turtle-doves cooed
from the tiles. Thickets of the maritime stone
pine covered the hills behind Marouille, over
which frowned the grey mediæval Château of
Ocques, once a baronial residence, then a fortress,
then a barrack, now a penitentiary.

The "correctionnaires," or inmates of this
house of penance, did not trouble the inhabitants
much. They were kept with commendable stringency
behind the strong stone walls of the Castle
of Ocques, where they worked for their sins at
sailcloth weaving, rope-making, and mat-plaiting.
Once in six months or so, one of their number
escaped; but Marouille-le-Gency had a breed of
strong savage dogs, and, a substantial reward
being offered for the capture of fugitives, the
refugee was soon hunted down. The house of
correction was principally useful to the villagers
as a bugbear, or bête noire, to scare their refractory
children withal, who, when they did not behave
themselves, were threatened with being
sent là-haut, up there, to the big old castle.

The inhabitants were mostly small proprietors,
each cultivating his own particular patch of
vineyard or olive garden, and contriving to make
both ends meet, in a scrambling kind of manner,
at the end of the year. The necessaries of life
were cheap. Bread was coarse, but plentiful.
Meat was seldom eaten, but as seldom asked for.
Beyond a few river trout and some salt fish in
Lent, there was no consumption of piscine delicacies.
Oranges and grapes cost nothing at all.
The country wine cost only four sous the litre, and
for luxuries the denizens of Marouille-le-Gency
had a profound disregard.

They did not occupy themselves much with
contemporary politics. Theoretically they were
legitimists, and kept as a fête the anniversary of
the grand day A.D. 1815, when Monseigneur
Louis Antoine, Fils de France and Duke of
Angoulême, had passed through Marouille-le-
Gency on his way to unfurl the white flag at
Bordeaux. By the same token, their usual mild
natures had undergone an eclipse of ferocity, and
they mobbed and nearly murdered Napoleon on
his way to Elba after his first abdication at
Fontainebleau. The ex-imperial carriage halted to
change horses at the village posthouse; the
moody occupant was recognised, hooted, insulted,
stoned; knives were brandished at the windows;
inflamed faces with fiery eyes glared in upon him;
and, but for the presence of mind of the mayor,
who was known to be a Bourbonist, and who,
baring his breast, stood at the coach door pointing
to his breast, and crying, "He is a tyrant,
but you shall kill me first!" they would have
dragged the fallen hero from his vehicle and
flung him under the wheels. It is said that
Napoleon shed tears of rage and shame at this
unmannerly reception, and that as soon as he was
clear of Marouille he changed clothes with one
of his postilions, and in jack-boots, a red waistcoat,
and a hat flaunting with ribbons, clacked
his whip, and bestrode the leader, in order to
avoid similar insults at the next stage. It must
be admitted that, although inveterate against
him in adversity, the Marouillais had never
fawned upon him in his prosperity. They had
invariably detested his rule. The mothers and
sweethearts of Marouille cursed him consistently
and continually. The flower of their youth had
been taken away from their vineyards to shed
their blood in his incessant battles.

Nevertheless, for years after 1821, they
obstinately refused to believe at Marouille in
Napoleon's death, holding that he was still secured
by the English with a strong chain riveted
to the wall of a dungeon in the island of St.
Helena; and as a "bogy " for naughty children
he divided popularity with the Château
d'Ocques. Da capo. For the rest they were
very pious, and the most docile of parishioners
to their curé, believing implicitly in relics, the
genuineness of modern miracles, and the direct
intervention of the saints in curing the diseases
of cattle, and in assisting the cultivation of the
vine. Spells, incantations, second sight, and the
evil eye, were in high repute among the Marouillais.

In the year 1825, Charles the Tenth being king
of France and Navarre, there came to live at
Marouille-le-Geucy, as landlord of its solitary