When not engaged in playing
"manille" for infinitesimal points, they would all shout and
gesticulate violently, as only Southern Frenchmen can, relapsing
as the discussion grew more heated into their native Provencal,
for though Nyons is geographically in Dauphine, climatically and
racially it is in Provence. In Southern France the "Langue d'Oil,"
the literary language of Paris and Northern France, has never
succeeded in ousting the "Langue d'Oc," the language of the
Troubadours. From hearing so much Provencal talked round me, I
could not help picking up some of it. It was years before I could
rid myself of the habit of inquiring quezaco? instead of "qu'est
ce que c'est?" and of substituting for "Comment cela va-t-il?" the
Provencal Commoun as? I found, too, that it was unusual elsewhere
to address people in our Nyons fashion as "Te, mon bon!"
Those swarthy, amply waistcoated, voluble little men were really
very good fellows in spite of their excitability and torrents of
talk.
The Southern Frenchmen divide Europe into the "Nord" and the
"Midi.
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