ngers to mayors, to sub-prefects, to
Arles to procure a deputation of girls of the province in the national
costume, to Barbantane, where the most skilful dancers of the
_farandole_ are to be found, to Faraman renowned for its herds of wild
bulls and Camarguese horses; and as Jansoulet's name blazed forth at
the foot of all these despatches, as the name of the Bey of Tunis also
figured in them, everybody acquiesced with the utmost eagerness, the
telegraphic messages arrived in an endless stream, and that little
Sardanapalus from Porte-Saint-Martin, who was called Cardailhac, was
forever repeating: "There is something to work with;" delighted to
throw gold about like handfuls of seed, to have a stage fifty leagues
in circumference to arrange, all Provence, of which country that
fanatical Parisian was a native, and thoroughly familiar with its
resources in the direction of the picturesque.

Dispossessed of her functions, the old lady seldom appeared, gave her
attention solely to the farm and her invalid, terrified by that crowd
of visitors, those insolent servants whom one could not distinguish
from their masters, those women with brazen, coquettish manners, those
closely-shaven old villains who resembled wicked priests, all those mad
creatures who chased one another through the halls at night with much
throwing of pillows, wet sponges, and curtain tassels which they tore
off to use as projectiles. She no longer had her son in the evening,
for he was obliged to remain with his guests, whose number increased as
the time for the fetes drew near; nor had she even the resource of
talking about her grandsons with "Monsieur Paul," whom Jansoulet,
always the kindest of men, being a little awed by his friend's
seriousness of manner, had sent away to pass a few days with his
brothers. And the careful housekeeper, to whom some one came every
moment and seized her keys to get spare linen or silverware, to open
another room, thinking of the throwing open of her stores of treasures,
of the plundering of her wardrobes and her sideboards, remembering the
condition in which the visit of the former bey had left the chateau,
devastated as by a cyclone, said in her patois, feverishly moistening
the thread of her distaff:

"May God's fire devour all beys and all future beys!"

At last the day arrived, the famous day of which people still talk
throughout the whole province. Oh! about three o'clock in the
afternoon, after a sumptuous breakf