THE POPE’S MULE

F all the pretty sayings, pro-
verbs, or adages with which
our Provengal peasants

embroider their conversation, I know

none more picturesque: or peculiar
than the following. For forty miles
around my mill when they speak of

a spiteful, vindictive man, they say,

‘Don’t trust that man! He is like

the Pope’s mule who kept her kick for

seven years.’

I tried for a long time to discover
the origin of this proverb, the story of
this papal mule and the kick that
waited for seven years. Nobody here
could tell me anything about it, not

 

~