the company. Because child-stealing was not uncommon here formerly, and
because gypsies still are plentiful, there are three gypsies lurking
about the inn all ready to steal the Christ-Child away. As the
inn-keeper naturally would come out to investigate the cause of the
commotion in his stable-yard, he is found, with the others, lantern in
hand. And, finally, there is a group of women bearing as gifts to the
Christ-Child the essentials of the Christmas feast: codfish, chickens,
carde, ropes of garlic, eggs, and the great Christmas cakes, _poumpo_
and _fougasso_.

Many other figures may be, and often are, added to the group--of which
one of the most delightful is the Turk who makes a solacing present of
his pipe to Saint Joseph; but all of these which I have named have come
to be now quite as necessary to a properly made creche as are the few
which are taken direct from the Bible narrative: and the congregation
surely is one of the quaintest that ever poetry and simplicity together
devised!

In Provencal the diminutive of saint is _santoun_; and it is as santouns
that all the personages of the creche--including the whole of the purely
human and animal contingent, and even the knife-grinding devil--are
known. They are of various sizes--the largest, used in churches, being
from two to three feet high--and in quality of all degrees: ranging
downward from real magnificence (such as may be seen in the
seventeenth-century Neapolitan creche in Room V. of the Musee de Cluny)
to the rough little clay figures two or three inches high in common
household use throughout Provence. These last, sold by thousands at
Christmas time, are as crude as they well can be: pressed in rude
moulds, dried (not baked), and painted with glaring colours, with a
little gilding added in the case of Jehovah and the angels and the
Kings.

For two centuries or more the making of clay santouns has been a notable
industry in Marseille. It is largely a hereditary trade carried on by
certain families inhabiting that ancient part of the city, the Quarter
of Saint-Jean, which lies to the south of the Vieux Port. The figures
sell for the merest trifle, the cheapest for one or two sous, yet the
Santoun Fair--held annually in December in booths set up in the
Cour-du-Chapitre and in the Allee-des-Capucins--is of a real commercial
importance; and is also--what with the oddly whimsical nature of its
merchandise, and the vast enjoyment of the children under pare