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Later that day, Maya, Claude and Paloma drove to Vauvenargues and placed a large wreath of vivid flowers in the cemetery overlooking the chateau. "That was as close to our fa ther as we could get," Maya said. "It's sad. The whole situation is very delicate." The next day, Paulo's son Pablo, 24, of nearby Golfe-Juan, was reported in serious condition after drinking a bottle of chloric acid. According to his mother (who has long been separated from Paulo), Pablo had been despondent about being kept from seeing his grandfather. Others said he had also been depressed about financial troubles.
The choice of Vauvenargues as the burial site both delighted and surprised the village's 300 residents, since Picasso had rarely visited there in recent years. "We chose it partly because my father loved the Provencal light," explained Paulo. "Besides, the majestic surroundings were more worthy of him than Mougins, where he had sordid arguments with the village council. If ever a Picasso museum is created," he added, "Vauvenargues would be a fine place."
Picasso had been enchanted with the austere medieval château when he acquired it in 1958. It included 2,500 acres on the north slope of Mont Sainte Victoire, and, as he told a friend at the time: "I have just bought myself Cézanne's view." He liked the vast rooms, since he was always running out of space for his paintings and sculptures. But he soon changed his mind. Few friends dropped by as they did on the Riviera, and it was too far from the sea to enable him to take an occasional swim. Finally, in 1961, Picasso decided to move to Notre-Dame-de-Vie and the balmier climate of the Riviera back country. There he kept up his prodigious pace, filling one room after another with paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, sculptures—and building on to the house when necessary.
In the morning, he sometimes sketched in bed, and he delighted in going through the mail to see what outrageous request or oddity someone might have sent him. Like a good Spaniard, he lunched around 2 o'clock, then occasionally went for a walk in the garden with Jacqueline and their two Afghan hounds. After a siesta, there was tea, and when he was not expecting friends, Picasso read or worked until 2 or 3 in the morning. "Work is what commands my schedule," he told a friend. "Daylight is perfect to contact friends —which is always a must with an artist —and go out. In our modern times, we can obtain excellent light at night —which we could never do with the yellowish shades of old lamps—and I also have silence."