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                     BIBLIOTHEQUE
                  DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE
                       DU ROMAN
                     CONTEMPORAIN


                  _KING OF CAMARGUE_


                      JEAN AICARD


            PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY
          GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA


        COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON



                   THIS EDITION OF

                   KING OF CAMARGUE

            HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED
                          BY

                    GEORGE B. IVES


                  THE ETCHINGS ARE BY

                     LOUIS V. RUET


                    AND DRAWINGS BY

                      GEORGE ROUX




                    CHEFS-D'OEUVRE
                          DU
                  ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN


                      ROMANCISTS




                     THIS EDITION

             DEDICATED TO THE HONOR OF THE

                  ACADEMIE FRANCAISE

   IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED
                SETS, OF WHICH THIS IS

                      NUMBER 358




                    THE ROMANCISTS

                      JEAN AICARD

                   KING OF CAMARGUE




  [Illustration: Chapter VI

    _This woman had a way of looking at people that disconcerted
    them. You would say that a sharp, threatening flame shot from
    her eyes. It penetrated your being, searched your heart, and
    you were powerless against it._]




TO EMILE TRELAT


My Very Dear Friend:

Permit me to dedicate this book to you, whose incomparable friendship
has been to the poet, obstinate in his idealism, of hourly assistance,
a constant proof of the reality of true generosity and kindness of
heart.

                                                Jean Aicard.

    _La Garde, near Toulon, April 11, 1890._




Contents


                                                        PAGE
        I LIVETTE AND ZINZARA                              3

       II IN CAMARGUE                                     13

      III THE DROVERS                                     21

       IV THE SEDEN                                       27

        V THE LOVERS                                      39

       VI RAMPAL                                          51

      VII THE MEETING                                     57

     VIII ON THE BENCH                                    73

       IX THE PRAYER                                      83

        X THE TERRACE                                     91

       XI THE HIDING-PLACE                                99

      XII A SORCERESS                                    121

     XIII THE SNAKE-CHARMER                              143

      XIV JOUSTING                                       165

       XV MONSIEUR LE CURE'S ARCHAEOLOGY                  177

      XVI ON THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH                      205

     XVII THE OLD WOMAN                                  219

    XVIII THE BLESSED RELICS                             231

      XIX THE BRANDING                                   247

       XX THE SNARE                                      261

      XXI HERODIAS                                       279

     XXII IN THE NEST                                    291

    XXIII THE PURSUIT                                    303

     XXIV IN THE GARGATE                                 323

      XXV THE PHANTOM                                    331

          NOTES                                          345




List of Illustrations

KING OF CAMARGUE


                                                        PAGE
    RAMPAL AND THE GIPSY                           _Fronts._

    RENAUD IN THE TOILS OF THE QUEEN                      64

    LIVETTE AND RENAUD                                    88

    LIVETTE WATCHES ON THE CHURCH ROOF                   216

    THE GIPSY'S COUCH                                    312




KING OF CAMARGUE




I

LIVETTE AND ZINZARA


A shadow suddenly darkened the narrow window. Livette, who was running
hither and thither, setting the table for supper, in the lower room of
the farm-house of the Chateau d'Avignon, gave a little shriek of
terror, and looked up.

The girl had an instinctive feeling that it was neither father nor
grandmother, nor any of her dear ones, but some stranger, who sought
amusement by thus taking her by surprise.

Nor a stranger, either, for that matter,--it was hardly possible!--But
how was it that the dogs did not yelp? Ah! this Camargue is frequented
by bad people, especially at this season, toward the end of May, on
account of the festival of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, which attracts,
like a fair, such a crowd of people, thieves and gulls, and so many
mischievous gipsies!

The figure that was leaning on the outside of the window-sill,
shutting out the light, looked to Livette like a black mass, sharply
outlined against the blue sky; but by the thick, curly hair,
surmounted by a tinsel crown, by the general contour of the bust, by
the huge ear-rings with an amulet hanging at the ends, Livette
recognized a certain gipsy woman who was universally known as the
Queen, and who, for nearly two weeks, had been suddenly appearing to
people at widely distant points on the island, always unexpectedly, as
if she rose out of the ditches or clumps of thorn-broom or the water
of the swamps, to say to the laborers, preferably the women: "Give me
this or that;" for the Queen, as a general rule, would not accept what
people chose to offer her, but only what she chose that they should
offer her.

"Give me a little oil in a bottle, Livette," said the young gipsy,
darting a dark, flashing glance at the pretty girl with the fair,
sun-flecked hair.

Livette, charitable as she was at every opportunity, at once felt that
she must be on her guard against this vagabond, who knew her name. Her
father and grandmother had gone to Arles, to see the notary, who would
soon have to be drawing up the papers for her marriage to Renaud, the
handsomest drover in all Camargue. She was alone in the house.
Distrust gave her strength to refuse.

"Our Camargue isn't an olive country," said she curtly, "oil is scarce
here. I haven't any."

"But I see some in the jar at the bottom of the cupboard, beside the
water-pitcher."

Livette turned hastily toward the cupboard. It was closed; but, in
truth, the stock of olive oil was there in a jar beside the one in
which they kept Rhone water for their daily needs.

"I don't know what you mean," said Livette.

"The lie came from your mouth like a vile black wasp from a
garden-flower, little one!" said the motionless figure, still leaning
heavily on the window-sill, evidently determined to remain. "The oil
is where I say it is, and more than twenty-five litres too; I can see
it from here. Come, come, take a clean bottle and the tin funnel and
give me quickly what I want. I'll tell you, in exchange, what I see in
your future."

"It's a deadly sin to seek to know what God doesn't wish us to know,"
said Livette, "and you can guess that oil is kept in cupboards and
still be no more of a sorceress than I am. Go about your business,
good-wife. I can give you some of this bread, fresh baked last night,
if you wish, but I tell you I haven't any oil."

"And why do they call you Livette," said the Queen calmly, "if it
isn't on account of the field of old olive-trees--the oldest and
finest in the country--owned by your father, near Avignon? There you
were born. There you remained until you were ten years old, and at
that age--seven years ago, a mystic number--you came here, where your
father was made farmer, overseer of drovers, manager of everything, by
the Avignonese master of this 'Chateau d'Avignon,' the finest in all
Camargue.--'Livettes! livettes!' that's the way you used to ask for
_olivettes_, olives, when you were a baby. You were very fond of them,
and the nickname clung to you. A pretty nickname, on my word, and one
that suits you well, for if you're not dark like the ripe olive,
you're fair as the virgin oil, a pearl of amber in the sunlight, and
then you are not yet ripe. Your face is oval, and not stupidly round
like a Norman apple. You have the pallor of the olive-leaves seen from
below.--And that you may soon see them so, little one, is the blessing
I ask for you, as the cures of your chapels say, where they take us in
for pity. Be compassionate as they are, in the name of your Lord Jesus
Christ, and give me some oil quickly, I say--in the name of extreme
unction and the garden of agony!"

The gipsy had said all this without stopping to breathe, in a dull,
monotonous, muffled voice, but she added abruptly in loud, piercing,
incisive tones: "Do you understand what I say?" imparting to those
simple words an extraordinarily imperious and violent expression.
Livette hastily crossed herself.

"Come, enough of this!" said she, "I have nothing here for you, and we
keep the oil of extreme unction for better Christians! Begone, pagan,
begone!" she added, trying to counterfeit courage.

"Of the three holy women," continued the gipsy, "who took ship, after
the death of Jesus Christ, to escape the crucifying Jews, one was
like myself, an Egyptian and a fortune-teller. She knew the science of
the Magi, of those with whom great Moses contended for mastery in
witchcraft. She could, at will, order the frogs to be more numerous
than the drops of water in the swamps, and she held in her hand a rod
which, at her word, would change to a viper. Before Jesus she bowed,
as did Magdalen, and Jesus loved her too. In the tempest, as they were
crossing the sea, her wand pointed out the course to follow, and, to
do that with safety, had no need to be very long. Must you have more
pledges of my power and my knowledge? What more must I tell you to
induce you to give me the oil I need so much? If you were a man, I
would say: 'Look! I am dark, but I am beautiful! I am a descendant of
that Sara the Egyptian who, when the boat of the three holy women drew
near the sands of Camargue, paid the boatman by showing him her
undefiled body, stripped naked, with no thought of evil and without
sin, but knowing well that true beauty is rare and that the mere sight
of it is better than all the treasures of Solomon. So be it!'"

Livette was thoroughly alarmed. The gipsy's assurance, her hollow,
penetrating voice, imperious by fits and starts, these strange tales
filled with evil words on sacred subjects, this devilish mixture of
things pagan and things mystic, the consciousness of her own
loneliness, all combined to terrify her. She lost her head.

"Away with you, away with you," she cried, "queen of robbers! queen
of brigands! away with you, or I will call for help!"

"Your drover won't hear you; he's tending his drove to-day beside the
Vaccares. Come, give me the oil, I say, or I'll throw this black wand
on the ground, and you will see how snakes bite!"

But Livette, brave and determined, said: "No!" shuddering as she said
it, and, to glean a little comfort, cast a glance at the low beam
along which her father's gun was hanging. The gipsy saw the glance.

"Oh! I am not afraid of your gun," said she, "and to prove it--wait a
moment!"

She left the window. The light streamed into the room, bringing a
little courage to Livette's terrified heart, as she followed the gipsy
with her eyes. In the bright light of that beautiful May evening, the
gipsy woman stood out, a tall figure, against the distant, unbroken
horizon line of the Camargue desert, which could be seen through a
vista between the lofty trees of the park.

Livette felt a thrill of joy as she saw a troop of mares trotting
along the horizon, followed by their driver, spear in air--Jacques
Renaud, her fiance, without doubt.--But how far away he was! the
horses, from where she stood, looked smaller than a flock of little
goats. And her eyes came back to the gipsy queen. A few steps from the
farm-house, in front of the seigniorial chateau, a huge square