IN SAINTES-MARIES-DE-LA-MER
The Vigil of Saint Sara
(from our special correspond)

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 25 May.

Yesterday ended with the procession of shrines, their solemn opening and adoration of holy relics that they contain. Sacred bones — those of Saint Marie-Salomé wrapped in pink silk and those of Saint Marie-Jacobé in blue silk — were recognized, then the shrines were taken back with great pomp in the sanctuary, where they are closed and sealed again percent years.

And now here is the night of Saint Sara, the gypsy night. Amazing vigil that this vigil in the crypt of the church where are kept, in a wooden chest which everywhere is disintegrating and seems ready to crumble into powder, the remains of the boss of this wandering people faithful to its traditions, which does not fail, every May 25, to run by all the roads of the world to spend a night in prayer. The rounded crypt is narrow and low. It is dug under the very choir of the church, and it is accessed directly from the nave by descending a few steps. Candles burn on trays and candelabras illuminating a pile incredible number of men, women and children.

Gypsies keep watch, seated on the access steps: for one night, this crypt became their kingdom; no one enters it from midnight until morning and, to say the first mass of 3 hours, the priest must step over the piled up bodies which clutter the steps of the altar, looking poor. All along the low walls, half-naked children, dressed in tinsel faded by the rain from all skies and stained with the dust of all paths, wallow on shreds of blankets or eiderdowns of all colors, and, their mothers to next to them, fall asleep.

No song, no prayer. The hours pass in a thick silence, what litanies rise from the heart of these gypsies who keep, deep in their brown eyes, like a
flame of pagan mysteries and which sometimes whisper fragments of song or spell formulas in their old language, which some of them do not
already understand more, but which they repeat by attributing to them who knows what incantatory power ? However, above them, in the nave where the shrines of the Marys are displayed, the offices follow one another and we also watch in a confused disorder. There are so many crowded, and the night is long. We eat and we drink; we settle where we can, on the pews, On the chairs, even in the confessionals. There is like a return
feasts of yesteryear, and the living faith of the people of Provence, who thus enjoy treating God, with a piety exteriorized in familiar gestures, takes on a moving value here.

Thus passes the mystical night, while in the small town, the comings and goings are as numerous as during the day; that we sing at the estaminets, that we say fortune-telling, let's dance. And the day breaks, covered with low clouds that grow a warm wind. Showers are falling, but we don't worry about the rain. The pilgrims are so numerous that, during the high mass celebrated in the church, another is said on a makeshift altar, sheltered by a tarpaulin, on the square crowded with crowds. And a sermon in Provençal makes the syllables sing in the open air. 

The Blessing of the Waves

From the church and the square, the pilgrims then converge towards the shore of the sea, for the blessing of the waters. It is soon an immense assembly, whipped the rain and the wind, stained with colors by the groups of gypsies in violent clothes. The rain redoubles. What does it matter! Umbrellas open, but no one leaves, A vicar, with a Roman face, is standing on a rock. He sings a hymn, beats measure, and the voices rise in bursts at

Provençau e catouli,
Nosto fe, nosto fe n’a pas fali

But here are the banners of the procession, then the images of saints carved in the wood, seated in a small white nave and whose faces are smiling. With the butt and the miter, the Archbishop of Aix precedes them. They are carried on the waves, and it is of one moored boat that Bishop Rivière, having near him the saints, blesses the gray sea. 

The surf makes the sacred statues sway, but Salomé and Jacobé experienced harshest storms before approaching this strike, and their smile does not fade point,

J.-N. FAURE BIGUET.