Charles Galtier in Mollégès, Bouches-du-Rhône (13)

The draught horse statue in Mollégès has four lines of poetry (dated 1989) at its base. The author of it, Charles Galtier (1913–2004), was born in Eygalières and died in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He was a Félibrige majoral, a curator at the Frédéric Mistral museum in Maillane, and his doctoral thesis (1968) from the Université de Montpellier is entitled Vallabrègues : un village de vanniers: Mistral's main male character Vincent in Mirèio is a basket maker, and Mistral's inspiration came from the basket makers of Vallabrègues, incidentally the only commune in Gard on the left bank of the Rhône. Galtier was the first laureate of the Prix Frédéric Mistral in 1946, and wrote many plays and short stories in Provençal, along with publications on his research into Provençal culture.