Before Peter Mayle with his books on the joys and hitches of life in Provence, there was Lady Fortescue. Her book Perfume from Provence was enormously popular when first published in 1935. Since then, it has been printed in paperback by Black Swan and reprinted and reprinted. What is the draw of Provence for the English-speaking reading public? Sun, of course, and also the two writers make the contacts with the people of the area, a daily drama, a clash of cultures, if you like. Then there is, of course the vegetation. Lady Fortescue writes: "A friend of mine collected sixty-three varieties of wild flowers in one short hour on the mountains and came to me for the botany book to identify them - a task impossible in an English book for there are greater treasures found in the hot sunshine and mountains of Provence." And she remarks, with pardonable exaggeration, that you hardly need to make a garden at all, for Nature makes "the whole country into one garden."
But, of course, her house was in enviable surroundings not far from Grasse, on sloping territory. The characters are brought well to life. She and her husband bought a cottage and had to make extensions before taking over - including digging deep into the mountain slope for the foundations of new rooms. One local custom made a deep impression. "The hand-shaking in Provence is most exhausting. My hand was shaken at least sixty times a day, shaken in greeting, shaken in parting and on every possible pretext by every variety of hand in every possible condition of dirt." She is talking here largely of the many workmen who were engaged in the building. As she passed, they would pause, remove their caps and shake her hand. "We kept a supply of pumice stone, turpentine and patent cleaners ever ready in the bathroom to remove the traces of our workmens' warmth of heart and hand."
At another point she decides that it is a waste of time and energy to attempt to speed up things in Provence, like trying to swim in mud. "Better far just to wallow cosily in it." Her gardener lectures her on planting. Beans and peas and amorous things and thus must be sown in the first quarter of the moon, for then they spring swiftly towards her smile. Potatoes, carrots and turnips, however, must be put down in the last quarter of the moon, who will drag down their roots as she sinks. She watched her gardener plant peas and beans. He took each bean separately, wrapped it tenderly inside a ball of manure and deposited it gently in the hole in the ground. He watered them and said they would break ground in a few days. They did. Y