One night in the winter of 1819 there was a frost which, had it been a few times repeated, would have done as final mischief to the olives as the phylloxera has done to the vines. The terror of that night is remembered still. Corn, vine, and olive--these were the gifts of the Greek to Provence, and the third is the most precious of all. The olive has here an Eastern importance; the Provençals would see a living truth in the story of how the trees said unto it, "Reign thou over us." In the flowering season the slightest sharpness in the air sends half the rural population bare-foot upon a pilgrimage to the nearest St Briggitte or St Rossoline. The olive harvest is the supreme event of the year. It has its song too. In the warm days of St Martin's summer, says the late Damase Arbaud, some worker in the olive woods will begin to sing of a sudden--
It is a mere nonsense song respecting the meeting of a lover and his lass on every day of the week, she being each day on her way to buy provisions, and he giving her the invariable advice that she had better come back, because it is raining. Were it the rarest poetry the effect could be hardly more beautiful than it is. When the first voice has sung, "I met my love ..." ascending slowly from a low note, the whole group of olive-gatherers take it up, then the next, and again the next, till the country-side is made all musical by the swell and fall of sound sent forth from every grey coppice; and even long after the nearer singers have ceased, others unseen in the distance still raise the high-pitched call, "Come back, my love, come back! ... come back!"
On the first of November it is customary in Provence for families to meet and dine. The fruits of the earth are garnered, the year's business is over and done. The year has brought perhaps new faces into the family; very likely it has taken old faces away. Towards evening the bells begin to toll for the vigil of the feast of All Souls. Tears come into the eyes of the older guests, and the children are hurried off to bed. Why should they be present at this letting loose of grief? To induce them to retire with good grace, they are allowed to take with them what is left of the dessert--chestnuts, or grapes, or figs. The child puts a portion of his spoils at the bottom of his bed for the _armettes_: so are called the spirits of the dead who are still in a state of relation with the living, not being yet finally translated into their future abode. Children are told that if they are good the _armettes_ will kiss them this night; if they are naughty, they will scratch their little feet.