Mistral (wind) prehistoric site called Terra Amata, at the foot of Mount Boron in Nice, showed that in about 40,000 B.C. the inhabitants had built a low wall of rocks and beach stones to the northwest of their fireplace to protect their fire from the power of the mistral. The "mas" (farmhouse) traditionally faces south, with its back to the mistral. The bell towers of villages in Provence are often open iron frameworks, which allow the wind to pass through. The traditional Provençal Nativity scene usually includes a figure of a shepherd holding his hat, with his cloak blowing in the mistral.
Frédéric Mistral 1588, the Mistral family lived in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Mistral was given the name "Frederi" in memory "of a poor small fellow who, at the time when my parents were courting, sweetly ran their errands of love, and who died shortly afterward of sunstroke." Mistral did not begin school until he was about nine years, and quickly began to play hooky, leading his parents to send him to a boarding school in Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet, run by a Monsieur Donnat. After receiving his bachelor's degree in Nîmes, Mistral studied law in Aix-en-Provence from 1848 to 1851. He became a champion for the independence of