The gulf of La Ciotat, equally distant from Toulon and Marseilles, lies in between the two capes of Alon and l’Aigle. The latter rises on the west of the bay.
By order of the council of the town of La Ciotat, a sentry-box for the use of a watchman had been erected on the summit of this promontory. It was the duty of this man to watch for the coming of pirates from Barbary, and to signal their approach by kindling a fire which could be seen all along the coast.
The scene we are about to describe occurred at the foot of this sentry-box about the middle of the month of December, 1633.
An impetuous northwest wind, the terrible mistraon of Provence, was blowing with fury. The sun, half-obscured by great masses of gray clouds, was slowly sinking in the waves, whose immense dark green curve was broken by a wide zone of reddish light, which diminished in proportion as the black clouds extended over the horizon.
The summit of Cape l’Aigle, where the watchman’s box was situated, commanded the entire circumference of the gulf; the last limestone spurs of the whitish mountains of Sixfours, and Notre Dame de la Garde, descending like an amphitheatre to the edge of the gulf, here joined themselves to little cliffs formed of fine white sand, which, lifted up by the south wind, invaded a part of the coast. A little farther, on the declivity of a series of hills, shone the lights of several quicklime ovens, whose black smoke increased the gloomy aspect of the sky. Almost at the foot of the cape of l’Aigle, at the entrance of the bay, backed up against the mountains, could be seen, as the crow flies, the island Verte and the little town La Ciotat, belonging to the diocese of Marseilles and the jurisdiction of Aix.
The town formed almost a trapezium, the base of which rested on the port This port held a dozen small vessels, called polacres and caravels, laden with wines and oil, waiting for favourable weather to return to the coast of Italy. About thirty boats designed for sardine fishing, called essanguis by the inhabitants of Provence, were moored in a little bay of the gulf, named the cove of La Fontaine. The belfries of the churches and of the convent of the Ursulines were the only things which broke the monotony of the dwellings, almost entirely covered with tiles.
On the hillsides which commanded the town, fields of olive-trees could be seen, several clusters of green oak and hillocks of vines, and at the extreme horizon the pine-covered summits of the chain of Roquefort mountains.
At the eastern limit of the bay of La Ciotat, between the points Carbonières and Seques, the ancient Roman ruins, called Torrentum, could be distinguished, and farther and farther toward the north several windmills, thrown here and there upon the heights, served as seamarks to the vessels which came to anchor in the gulf.
Outside, and west of the cape of L’Aigle, almost upon the edge of the sea, rose a fortified mansion named Les Anbiez, of which we will speak later.
The summit of the cape of L’Aigle formed a tableland fifty feet in circumference. Almost everywhere was the same precipitous rock of yellowish sandstone, variegated with brown; sea-broom, heather, and clover crossed it here and there; the watchman’s sentry-box was erected under the cover of two stunted oaks and a gigantic pine, which had braved the fury of the tempests for two or three centuries.
When the wind was very violent, although the promontory was more than three hundred feet above the level of the sea, one could hear the muttering thunder of the surf, as the waves broke themselves against its base.
The watchman’s box, solidly built of large blocks of stone, was covered over with slabs taken from the same quarry, so that the massive construction was able to resist the most violent winds.
The principal opening of this cabin looked toward the south, and from it the horizon was completely in view.
Near the door was a wide and deep square kiln, made of iron grating placed on layers of masonry. This kiln was kept filled with vine branches and fagots of olive-wood, ready to produce a tall and brilliant flame, which could be seen at a great distance. The furniture of this cabin was very poor, with the exception of a carved ebony casket, ornamented with the coat of arms and the cross of Malta, which treasure contrasted singularly with the modest appearance of this little habitation. A walnut chest contained a few marine books, quite eagerly sought after by the learned of our day, among others “The Guide of the Old Harbour Pilot” and “The Torch of the Sea.” From the rough lime-plastered walls hung a cutlass, a battle-axe, and a wheel-lock musket.
Two coarse, illuminated engravings, representing St. Elmo, the patron of mariners, and the portrait of the grand master of the hospitable order of St. John of Jerusalem, then existing, were nailed above the ebony casket. To conclude the inventory of furniture, on the floor near the fireplace, where a large log of olive wood was slowly burning, a rush matting, covered over with an old Turkish carpet, formed a moderately good bed, for the inhabitant of this isolated retreat was not wholly indifferent to comfort.
The watchman on the cape of L’Aigle was attentively examining all the points of the horizon, with the aid of a Galileo spy-glass, at that time known by the name of long-view. The setting sun pierced the thick curtain of clouds, and with its last rays gilded the red trunk of the tall pine, the rough ridges of the little cabin walls, and the corners of the brown rock upon which the watchman was leaning.
The calm, intelligent face of this man was now lighted with intense interest.
His complexion, burned by the wind and tanned by the sun, was the colour of brick, and here and there showed deep wrinkles. The hood of his long-sleeved mantle, hiding his white hair, shaded his black eyes and eyebrows; his long, gray moustache fell considerably below his lower lip, where it mingled with a heavy beard, which covered the whole of his chin.
A red and green woollen girdle fastened his sailor trousers around his hips; straps supported his leather gaiters above his knees; a bag of richly embroidered stuff, hanging from his belt by the side of a long knife in its sheath, contained his tobacco, while his cachim-babaou, or long Turkish pipe with an earthen bowl, lay against the outer wall of his cabin.
For ten years Bernard Peyrou had been watchman on the cape of L’Aigle. He had recently been elected assignee of the overseer fishers of La Ciotat, who held their session every Sunday when there was matter for consideration. The watchman had served as patron seaman on the galleys of Malta for more than twenty years, never in all his navigations having left the Commander Pierre des Anbiez, of the venerable nation of Provence, and brother of Raimond V., Baron des Anbiez, who lived on the coast in the fortified house of which we have spoken. On each of these voyages to France the commander never failed to visit the watchman. Their interviews lasted a long time, and it was observed that the habitual melancholy of the commander increased after these conversations.
Peyrou, a lifelong sufferer from serious wounds, and unfit for active service on the sea, had been, at the recommendation of his old captain, chosen watchman by the council of the town of La Ciotat. When on Sunday he presided at the consultation of the overseers, an experienced sailor supplied his place at the sentry-box. Naturally endowed with a sense of right and justice, and living ten years in solitude, between the sky and the sea, Peyrou had added much to his intelligence by meditation. Already possessing the nautical and astronomical knowledge necessary to an officer on a galley of the seventeenth century, he continued to learn by a constant study of the great phenomena of nature always before his eyes.
Thanks to his experience, and his habit of comparing cause and effect, no one knew better than himself how to predict the beginning, the duration, and the end of the storms which prevailed on the coast.
He announced the calm and the tempest, the disastrous hurricanes of the mistraon, as the northwester was named in Provence, the gentle, fruitful rains of the miegion, or south wind, and the violent tornado of the labechades, or wind from the southwest; in fact, the form of the clouds, the soft or brilliant azure of the sky, the various colours of the sea, and all those vague, deep, and undefined noises which occasionally spring up in the midst of the silence of the elements were for him so many evident signs, from which he deduced the most infallible conclusions.
Never a captain of a merchantman, never a cockswain of a bark, put to sea without having consulted Master Peyrou.
Men ordinarily surround with a sort of superstitious reverence and halo those who live apart from the rest of the world.
Peyrou was no exception to the rule.
As his predictions about the weather were almost invariably realised, the inhabitants of La Ciotat and the environs soon persuaded themselves that a man who knew so much of the things in the sky could not be ignorant of the things on the earth.
Without passing exactly as a sorcerer, the hermit of the cape of L’Aigle, consulted in so many important circumstances, became the depositary of many secrets.
A dishonest man would have cruelly abused this power, but Peyrou took advantage of it to encourage, sustain, and defend the good, and to accuse, confound, and intimidate the wicked.
A practical philosopher, he felt that his opinion, his predictions, and his threats would lose much if their authority was not supported by a certain cabalistic display; hence, although he did so with reluctance, he accompanied each opinion with a mysterious formula.
The excellent spy-glass was a marvellous aid to his power of divination. Not only did he turn it to the horizon in order to discover the chebecs and piratical vessels of Barbary, but he directed it to the little town of La Ciotat,—on the houses, the fields, and the beach,—and thus surprised many secrets and mysteries, and by this means increased the reverence he inspired.
Peyrou, however, was altogether above the vulgar sorcerer by his entire disinterestedness. Had he some honest poverty to befriend, he ordered one of his wealthier clients to put a moderate offering in some secret spot which he indicated; the poor client, informed by Peyrou, went to the spot and found the mysterious alms.
Instigated by a blind zeal, the priests of the diocese of Marseilles wished to criminate the mysterious life of Peyrou, but the surrounding population immediately assumed such a menacing attitude, and the town council bore such testimony to the excellence of the watchman’s character, that he was permitted to live his solitary life in peace.
His only companion in this profound retreat was a female eagle which, two years before, had come to lay her eggs in one of the hollows of the inaccessible rocks which bordered the coast. The male bird had no doubt been killed, as the watchman never saw him.
Peyrou gave food to the young eagles; by degrees the mother grew accustomed to the sight of him, and the year after, she returned in perfect confidence to lay in the nest which Peyrou had prepared for her in a neighbouring rock.
Often the eagle perched on the branches of the tall pine which shaded the watchman’s house, and sometimes walked with a heavy and awkward step on the little platform.
Upon that day, Brilliant, for so the watchman had named the noble bird, seduced him from his reverie. She tumbled down from the topmost branch of the pine, and with half-open wings ran up to her friend with the ungraceful, waddling gait of a bird, of prey. Her plumage, black and brown on the wings, was ash-coloured and spotted with white on the body and neck; her formidable talons, covered with thick and shining scales, terminated in three claws and a sharp spur of smooth, black horn.
Brilliant looked up at the watchman, lifting high her flat, gray head, where glittered two bold round eyes, whose iris dilated in a transparent cornea, the colour of topaz.
Her beak, strong and bluish like burnished steel, disclosed, when it opened, a slender tongue of pale red.
To attract the watchman’s attention, the eagle gently bit the end of his shoe, made of fawn leather.
Peyrou stooped and caressed Brilliant, who ruffled her feathers and uttered a discordant and broken cry.
But suddenly, hearing a step in the narrow foot-path which led to the cabin, the eagle lifted herself, uttered a long barking cry, stretched her powerful wings, hovered a moment over the colossal pine, and like an arrow shot into space. Soon nothing could be seen but a black spot on the deep blue sky.