their
wheat here to be ground into flour. The village was surrounded by hills
covered in windmills. On every side, above the pine trees, sails,
turning in the mistral, filled the landscape, and an assortment of
small, sack-laden donkeys trudged up and down the paths. Day after day
it was really good to hear the crack of the whips, the snap of the
sails, and the miller's men's prodding, "Gee-up".... On Sundays, we
used to go up to the windmills in droves, and the millers thanked us
with Muscat wine. The miller's wives looked as pretty as pictures with
their lace shawls and gold crosses. I took my fife, of course, and we
farandoled the night away. Those windmills, mark me, were the heart and
soul of our world.

"Then, some Parisians came up with the unfortunate idea of establishing
a new steam flour mill on the Tarascon Road. People soon began sending
their wheat to the factory and the poor wind-millers started to lose
their living. For a while they tried to fight back, but steam was the
coming thing, and it eventually finished them off. One by one, they had
to close down.... No more dear little donkeys; no more Muscat! and no
more farandoling!... The millers' wives were selling their gold crosses
to help make ends meet.... The mistral might just as well not have
bothered for all the turning the windmills did.... Then, one day, the
commune ordered the destruction of all the run-down windmills and the
land was used to plant vines and olive trees.

"Even during of all this demolition, one windmill had prevailed and
managed to keep going, and was still bravely turning on, right under
the mill factors' noses. It was Master-Miller Cornille's mill; yes,
this actual one we're chewing the fat in right now."

* * * * *

"Cornille was an old miller, who had lived and breathed flour for sixty
years, and loved his milling above all other things. The opening of the
factories had enraged him to distraction. For a whole week, he was
stirring up the locals in the village, and screaming that the mill
factories would poison the whole of Provence with their flour. "Don't
have anything to do with them," he said, "Those thieves use steam, the
devil's own wind, while I work with the very breath of God, the
tramontana and the mistral." He was using all manner of fine words in
praise of windmills. But nobody was listening.

"From then on, the raving old man just shut himself away in his
windmill and lived alone like a