Martigues, who sailed in Holy Week for that town, by whom I sent you
some seeds of exquisite fruits and flowers of the Indies, together with
two specimens of ore, the one from Potosi and the other from
Terra-Firma, and also a box of seven winter-melons of that country." And
so the winter-melons came into Provence from somewhere on the Spanish
Main. I could wish that my gentleman had been a bit more definite in
his geography. As he leaves the matter, his melons may have come from
anywhere between the Orinoco and Florida; and down in that region
somewhere, no doubt, they still are to be found.

With the serious part of the supper we drank the ordinary small wine
diluted with water; but with the dessert was paraded a gallant company
of dusty bottles containing ancient vintages which through many
ripening years had been growing richer by feeding upon their own
excellence in the wine-room of the Mazet or the cellar of the Chateau.
All were wines of the country, it being a point of honour in Provencal
households of all degrees that only from Provencal vineyards--or from
the near-by vineyards of Languedoc--shall come the Christmas wines.
Therefore we drank rich and strong Tavel, and delicate Ledenon, and
heavy Frontignan--the cloyingly-sweet Mouscat de Maroussa--and
home-made champagne (the _clairette_, with a superabundance of pop and
fizz but undeniably cider-like), and at last, for a climax, old
Chateauneuf-du-Pape: the dean of the Provencal vinous faculty, rich,
smooth, delicate, with a slightly aromatic after-taste that the
dallying bees bring to the vine-blossoms from the blossoms of the
wild-thyme. Anciently it filled the cups over which chirped the
sprightly Popes of Avignon; and in later times, only forty years back,
it was the drink of the young Felibrien poets--Mistral, Roumanille,
Aubanel, Mathieu and the rest--while they tuned and set a-going their
lyres. But it is passing into a tradition now. The old vines, the
primitive stock, were slain by the phylloxera, and the new vines
planted to replace them do not produce a wine like that over which
Popes and poets once were gay. Only in rich old cellars, such as that
of Vielmur, may still be found a bin or two of dust-grey Papal
veterans: survivors of the brave army that has gurgled its life out in
a happy past!

XIII

But the material element of the Great Supper is its least part. What
entitles it to the augmenting adjective is its soul: that subtle essence
of