Daniel Auteuil's La Fille du puisatier (2011)

This is a fairy story, the flipside of Frédéric Mistral's tragic Mireille, and a remake of Marcel Pagnol's film of the same name starring Raimu and Fernandel (which I've not seen). The prince is Jacques Mazel (Nicolas Duvauchelle), a guy born into wealth, and the princess is Patricia Amoretti (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), the well digger's daughter.

This is set slightly before World War II breaks out, Patricia is pregnant with no hope of marrying the future father, the parents of Jacques won't entertain the thought of their son Jacques being the father, and anyway he's gone off to fight and is soon killed. Meanwhile, Patricia's father has to disown her because of the shame of having an 'illegitimate' child in the family. (We'll forget the sub-plot of Félipe (Kad Merad) wanting to marry Patricia so as not to complicate things.)

Anyway, Jacques comes back from the dead and wants to marry Patricia, which will be done as soon as possible, Jacque's parents are very pleased to be grandparents, and all things are resolved: a real fairy story with a happy end. The Mazel parents live in Salon, although I thought it a rather long way for Patricia (from a neighbouring hamlet) to go to Meet Jacques (before he went to war), but then this was called 'La Chapelle Saint Julien' so made out to be somewhere else, although the chapel shown in the still below is in fact the Chapelle Saint Sixte in Egalières, as shown on the cover of Maurice Pezet's book Egalières-en-Provence (1970):

Nostradamus in Salon-de-Provence (13)

'DANS CETTE MAISON

VÉCUT ET MOURUT

MICHEL NOSTRADAMUS

ASTROPHILE

MÉDECIN ORDINAIRE DU ROI

AUTEUR DES "ALMANACHS" ET

DES IMMORTELLES "CENTURIES"

MDIII   MDLXVI'

As you'd expect, Nostradamus is all over Salon-de-Provence, the town of his birth. The exterior of his birthplace doesn't make for a pretty picture with all the tourists milling round, and although photography is only allowed on the ground floor I was at least able to take the two shots above.

These murals on a nearby building are interesting, particularly the top one, which represents Catherine Médicis's visit to Nostradamus with her young son Charles IX in October 1564, when the town was known as Salon-de-Crau.

A much more modern representation of the great man, although I couldn't find a date on it. And, the provençal heat taking its toll on us after a heavy day, we had to give his tomb a miss.

Antoine Blaise Crousillat in Salon-de-Provence (13)

The Félibrige poet Antoine Blaise Crousillat (1814–99) was born in Salon-de-Provence, where he died in the house of his birth, and this square has been called Place Crousillat since 1901. His correspondence with Frédéric Mistral lasted forty-seven years. He made contributions to a number of publications, and wrote three books: La Bresco (1864), Lei Nadau (1880) and L'Eissame (1893).