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It was against such "bacchanals of noël" that the worthy Father Cotton preached in Marseille in the year 1602: but the flesh and the devil always have had things pretty much their own way in that gay city, and he preached in vain.
Paul had no curiosity to ascertain who that personage might be; he simply rode across the marble city and returned by the railway which runs from Genoa to Marseille, following the coast; a marvellous road, where you pass from the inky darkness of tunnels into the dazzling splendor of the blue sea, but so narrow that accidents are very frequent.
My master never came to Paris until last year. From Tunis to Marseille, and Marseille to Tunis, that's all the travelling he did. But that scurvy journalist is taking his revenge on us for refusing him twenty thousand francs."
From Valence to Marseille, throughout the valley of the Rhone, Saint-Romans de Bellaigue is as famous as a fairy palace; and a genuine fairyland in those regions, scorched by the mistral, is that oasis of verdure and of lovely, gushing water. "When I am rich, mamma," Jansoulet, when he was a mere urchin, used to say to his mother whom he adored, "I'll give you Saint-Romans de Bellaigue."
As yet he had never exercised the priestly virtues; he knew himself called to other functions; he was not forced to enter the social breaches where the heart bleeds at the sight of woes: his mission was that of the higher clergy, who maintain the spirit of devotion, represent the highest intellect of the Church, and on eminent occasions display the priestly virtues on a larger stage, like the illustrious bishops of Marseille and Meaux, and the archbishops of Arles and Cambrai.
"A man who was once a porter at Marseille." At that M. Noël bristled up. "I say there, old Francis, you're glad enough to have the porter of La Cannebière pay for your roastings at bouillotte all the same. You won't find many parvenus like us, who loan millions to kings, and whom great noblemen like Mora don't blush to receive at their table."
It took us a whole week to extricate ourselves and all that time we had to just sit on that boat. By the time we finally got to Marseille we had been traveling for three weeks. We settled in Menton where we remained for several years. I worked in a French Real Estate office. We also played at Monte Carlo and were quite proficient.
Jansoulet might well have believed that he was in one of the frightful dens along the water front in Marseille, listening to a quarrel between a prostitute and a nervi, or looking on at some open-air fracas between Genoese, Maltese and Provençal women gleaning on the quay around bags of grain in process of unloading, and reviling each other at full speed in eddies of golden dust.
Everyone stared.... The military band stopped playing and the Offenbach polka came to a halt with one foot in the air. With his two rifles on his shoulders, his revolver by his side, unflinching and stately he passed through the throng, but on reaching the hotel his strength deserted him. The departure from Tarascon. The harbour at Marseille. The crossing. The Montenegrin prince.
He had never even made the ritual journey to Marseille which every good Provencal makes when he comes of age. He might, of course, have visited Beaucaire, albeit Beaucaire is not very far from Tarascon, as one has only to cross the bridge over the Rhone.
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