Letters From My Windmill Alphonse Daudet (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📖

of grass; everything was black, charred, andeaten away. Only the banana, apricot, peach, and mandarin trees couldbe recognised by the outline of their stripped branches, but lackingthe charm and flourish of the leaves which only yesterday had beentheir living essence. The rooms and the water tanks were being washedout. Everywhere, labourers were digging into the ground destroying thelocusts' eggs. Each sod of soil was carefully examined and turned over.But it broke their hearts to see the thousands of white, sap-filledroots in the crumbling, still-fertile soil….

FATHER GAUCHER'S ELIXIR

—Drink this, friend,; and tell me what you think of it.

At this, the priest of Graveson, with all the care of a jewellercounting pearls, poured me two fingers of what proved to be a fresh,golden, cordial, sparklingly exquisite liqueur…. It warmed thecockles of my heart.

—It's Father Gaucher's elixir, the pleasure and toast of Provence,crowed the kind man, it's made at the White Canons' Monastery, a fewkilometres from your windmill…. Now, isn't that worth all theChartreuses in the world?… And if you'd like to know the amusingstory of this delightful elixir, listen to this….

The presbytery's dining room was genuine, and calm, with littlepictures of the Stations of the Cross, and attractive, clear curtainsstarched like a surplice. It was in there that the priest began thisshort, and lightly sceptical and irreverent story, in the manner ofErasmus, but completely without art, or malicious intent.

* * * * *

Twenty years ago, the Norbertian monks, called the White Canons inProvence, hit some really hard times. To see their living conditions atthat time was to feel their pain.

Their great wall and St. Pacôme's tower were crumbling away. Thecloister was disappearing under the weeds, the columns were splitting,and the stone saints were collapsing in their niches. There was nostained glass window unbroken; nor door still on its hinges. Within thechapels and the inner cloister, the Rhone wind entered, just like inthe Camargue, blowing out candles, bending the lead and breaking theglass, and skimming the holy water from its font. Tellingly sadly, theconvent bell hung as silent as an empty dovecote, forcing the pennilessFathers to call to matins with an almond wood clapper!…

Oh, the woeful White Canons. I can still see them in procession onCorpus Christi day, sadly filing past in their patched capes—pale,emaciated, as befitted their mainly watermelon diet—followed by hisgrace the abbot, head lowered, shamed by his tarnished crosier, and hiseaten away, white, wool mitre. The lady followers of the brotherhoodwere reduced to tears of pity in the procession, and the well-builtbanner-carriers were tittering quietly amongst themselves as the poormonks appeared,

—Those who dream together, starve together

The fact is that the unfortunate White Canons had come to the pointwhere they were wondering if they wouldn't be better off finding aplace in the real world with every man for himself.

One day when this grave matter was under discussion in the chapter, theprior was informed that Brother Gaucher wanted to be heard in theassembly…. Brother Gaucher was the monastery cowherd, which meantthat he spent his entire day wandering around the cloister, driving twoold, emaciated cows from one archway to another, to graze the grass inthe gaps in the paving. He had been looked after for twelve years by anold woman from the Baux country, known as aunty Bégon, before he wastaken in by the monks. The unfortunate cowherd had been unable to learnanything but how to look after his cattle and to recite his Our Father;and then only in the Provencal language, as he was too dull witted foranything else, and about as sharp as a butter-knife. Otherwise, he wasa fervent Christian, although a touch extreme, at ease in a hair shirtand doing self-chastisement with commendable vigour, and, oh, brother,his strong arms!…

As he entered the chapter room, simple and uncouth, and greeted theassembly with a sort of curtsey, the Prior, Canons, Treasurer, in fact,everybody began to laugh. His greying hair, goatee beard and slightlywild eyes, always had this effect. It didn't bother Brother Gaucher,though.

—Reverend Fathers, he said meekly, as he twiddled with his rosary ofolive pips, Although it's very true that empty vessels make the mostnoise, I want you to know that by further furrowing my already poor,furrowed brow, I think I have found a way to deliver us from ourhardship.

—This is what I propose. You all know about aunty Bégon, the kindwoman who looked after me when I was little. (May her soul rest inpeace, the old vixen! She used to sing filthy songs after drinking.) Imust tell you, Reverend Fathers, that when she was alive, she was asfamiliar with the herbs of the mountainside, as the old Corsicanblackbird. Now, before she died, she developed a unique elixir madefrom several different kinds of herbs that we had gathered in theAlpilles…. All this was a long time ago, but, with the help of St.Augustine, and your permission, Father Abbot, I should, if I searchthoroughly, be able to find the ingredients for this elixir. We willthen only have to bottle it, and sell it at a good profit. This wouldallow the community to quietly fill its coffers, like our brotherTrappists and … and their liqueur, Grand Chartreu …

Before he could finish, the Prior had stood up and leapt round hisneck. The Canons shook him by the hand. But it was the treasurer, whowas more moved than all the others, and respectfully kissed the edge ofBrother Gaucher's frayed hood…. Each one then went back to his seatand the chapter, still in session, elected to entrust the cows toBrother Thrasybule, so that Brother Gaucher could dedicate himself tomaking his elixir.

* * * * *

How what trials and tribulations the good Brother underwent to retrieveaunty Bégon's recipe, history doesn't tell us. But what you can beassured of, is that after only six months the White Canons' elixir wasvery popular. Throughout the districts of Avignon and Arles therewasn't a single farm which didn't have a store room containing a smallbrown earthenware bottle showing the arms of Provence, and a silverlabel depicting a monk in ecstasy, standing amongst the bottles ofsweet wine and jars of