CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library DC 611.P958F72 Tour through old Provence / 3 1924 028 243 792 DATE DUE g2 ^^^ i^p"'"" APRliJ isma— ■ — - 10-7 M 1 IKZ '^ ^;«lP*,«l»^-**',*;W»» iSJE - — V.^T-WWld KMWWXS"*"''""' ^ iHiiXillniirfliii iltinllflfti'HWlMlilf ife^ i i CAYLORO PRINTED1N U.S.A. A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE THE "MOTOR TOUR" SERIES A MOTOR TOUR THROUGH ENG- LAND AND FRANCE. By Elizabeth Yardley. Cloth gilt, illustrated. THE MOTOR BOOK. A complete work on the history, construction, and de- velopment of the Motor. By John Armstrong. Illustrated with lOo draw- ings and photographs. ATOUR THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA. By A. S. Forrest. Profusely illustrated. %* Other Volumes in preparation. Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028243792 / ' AVIGNON. [Frontispiece. A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE BY A. S. FORREST WITH io8 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE AND LINE DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR NEW YORK JAMES POTT & COMPANY MCMXI PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN X ) i '■ ■ I /If I I FOREWORD Southwards from Valence, the Rhone flows swiftly and silently through a fertile and picturesque valley, the river broadening as the valley widens. The undulating valley is filled with vineyards and farms, amidst which are scattered houses and villages innumerable, with here and there on rising ground the ruins of an ancient castle or the grey mass of a city or town of some importance. From the banks of the river, as far as the eye can reach in every direction, the land was known in Caesar's time as Provincia or The Province, although the term Provence is in these modern times only applied to the extreme south-eastern portion. The wayfarer, in this land of sunshine and fertility, passing through its villages and visiting its towns, will continually meet with those relics, ruins, and remains which are left like footprints by races, djmasties, and empires long since passed away. Some of these foot- prints are nearly effaced, but others stand out to-day in 5 FOREWORD clear and distinct outline, recalling whole histories of bygone days. The very appearance of the people, of their buildings, their manners and customs are as remi- niscent of their remote ancestry as the ancient monu- ments to be found in their midst. Heredity and environment are both important factors in the making of a race, and it may be that the blue skies and sunlit landscapes, with their lovely distant prospects, have had as large a share in moulding the character of the inhabitants of this land to-day as the traits and tendencies inherited from Phoceans, Gauls, and Romans. Whatever may be the cause, there is some- thing about this region that makes an irresistible appeal to strangers from northern lands. Romance is written so plainly on its face that even " he who motors may read," and every day spent among its towns, villages, and castles is filled with vivid pictures of many of the more illustrious periods of civilisation. CONTENTS FOREWORD . . . . Page 5 I. AVIGNON . . . . • 13 II. VILLENEUVE^. . 75 III. TARASCON . 97 IV. LES BAUX . 127 V. MONTMAJOUR . 159 VI. ARLES .... . 175 VII. NIMES .... . 219 Vm. ORANGE . 253 INDEX (Illustrations) . . 283 INDEX (Text) .... . 285 LIST OF HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS Avignon Frontispiece FACING PAGE Interior of Chapel of St. Benezet, Avignon . . 48 Gateway, Tarascon . 80 The Postern, Les Baux .... . 116 Montmajour ...... • 144 The Alyscamps, Arles .... . 176 Roman Theatre, Arles .... 204 Woman of Arles . 240 For Index of Illustrations in the text see page 283. AVIGNON II AVIGNON From whatever direction Avignon is approached, the dignity of its battlements, the profusion of its belfries, and the towering majesty of its remarkable palace, call forth the unstinted admiration of the most surfeited sightseer. But it is from the river that the finest view of the City of the Popes can be obtained. The silent gliding waters of the winding Rhone flow in their fleet course past many a noble town and castle, but in the whole of their long voyage past none to compare with the glorious town of Avignon. The richness of the surrounding fields and vineyards dotted with foliage of varied shape and hue, the extensive plains, with many a rugged promontory, are a fit setting for the stern and rigid palace that guards the Papal town. From the eastern horizon the noble Alps look across the great fertile plain to their distant neighbours the Cevennes. These two mountain chains enclose the ex- 13 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE tensive valley of the Rhone, a valley that has been inhabited in turn by Gauls, Greeks, and Romans, all of whom have left their marks indelible upon its face. This valley has been richly prized by those who set foot upon its soil. The mild climate, the rare atmosphere, and clear blue sky of Provence, have combined to produce populations profoundly appreciative of the joys and pleasures of existence, who have each in their own way given expression to their feelings and emotions in their arts and letters. The Romans sought expression in their buildings, the Goths in rich and fanciful designs, and the mingled race of Proven9als in their songs and lays. Here is a land that teems with the works of man's imagination, met with continually in the massed for- 14 AVIGNON tresses and embattled monasteries, the Roman play- gromids and places of amusement, the peaceful cloisters and places of worship. Avignon, the Avenio of the Romans, was a Celtic city (the Sovereign of the Waters) before its conquest by the great empire-makers of the pre-Christian era ; but its character was changed out of all recognition by the mediaeval inhabitants of the town. It is known to-day as the City of the Popes, and its fame is inseparably connected with the seventy years during which seven of the Popes had their residence within its protecting walls. The " Babylonish Captivity," as it was called by Petrarch, which lasted from 1305 to 1375, made history not only for Avignon but for the rest of Christendom. The events which led up to the serious step of breaking 15 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ the continuity of the Papal residence at the Holy See of Rome are worth recalling. During the latter part of the first millennium of the Christian era the power of the Papacy had assumed alarming sway over the many small States into which Europe had become divided after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, The Papal Empire that had arisen had inspired the world anew with the ancient terror of the name of Rome. The occupant of St. Peter's Chair was the maker and unmaker of kings. From the beginning of the eleventh century this power had been growing, to the great satisfaction of Churchmen and the keen chagrin of the laity. The scheming ambition of the Popes knew no bounds, and it culminated in the claim of Boniface VIII. for the absolute supremacy of the Papacy over all temporal authorities. It was just at the close of the thirteenth century that the inevitable conflict came. Two of the most powerful kings in Europe, Philip the Fair of France and Edward the First of England, began at the same time to lay an arbitrary hand upon the revenues of the Church. The English King resisted the commands of the Pope, who was compelled to give way. -Philip was not so fortunate in his quarrel with Rome, i6 ■^ <> ^ AVIGNON which in the first year of the next century came to a head. A legate sent by Boniface to Philip behaved himself so insolently that the French Monarch placed him under arrest. The Pope, enraged at the indignity offered to his representative, issued a series of Bulls to the King and Clergy of France, in one of which he set up the claim that the King of France was subject to Rome in temporal as in spiritual affairs. This was the first time that such a contention had been explicitly put forward in an official document, and Philip at once replied by a rude letter, by publicly burning the Papal Bulls, and by calling together the three great Orders of his Kingdom, the Nobles, Commons, and Clergy. This was the first Convocation in France of the States General, an assembly which four centuries later was to play so important a part in the Great Revolution. Boniface strained the Papal Authority to the breaking- 2 17 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ point, reached at last when one of Philip's nobles, joined with some of the discontented Colonna in Italy, arrested the Pope himself when on a visit to his native town, Anagni, a few miles out of Rome. Although the towns- folk eventually came to the outraged Pope's assistance and liberated him, the indignity was more than the choleric Boniface could stand, and he died, some say of temper, others of a broken heart. The reaction against the Papacy had set in, and Benedict XL, successor to Boniface, was neither willing nor able to continue the struggle. Anxious to reinstate the Papacy in the good opinion of France, he rescinded the excommunication of Philip and abandoned all pretensions to temporal power. His occupancy of the pontifical chair was, however, of short duration. His death brought about a new crisis, for the French and Italian cardinals, met in conclave, could not agree; and for months the election of the successor to the chair was delayed. Eventually the powerful influence of Philip was successful in securing the election of a Frenchman, Bertrand de Goth or d'Agoust, Archbishop of Bordeaux, whom he compelled to assume the title of Clement V. and remove the court to France. i8 19 o ^ ^ AVIGNON Provence about fifty years before this period had passed to Charles I. of Anjou, who inherited the kingdom through his wife, a daughter of the fourth Raymond Berenger. When their son Charles II. came into his patrimony of Anjou and Provence, with Naples, he united them, and during his reign great prosperity came to the kingdom. But upon his death, in 1305, a dispute arose amongst his son and grandsons, their rival claims being argued at great length in Avignon before Clement V. who was the feudal superior of the Neapolitan kingdom. His decision favoured Robert the son of Charles II., who therefore succeeded to the throne, but afterwards left a troubled inheritance to his granddaughter the unfortu- nate Joan. History is conflicting with regard to the character of this Princess, and she has her partisans to-day, in the same way as Mary, Queen of Scots, whose tragic story is very similar. Joan, or Joanna, reared at Naples in the midst of every luxury and refinement that the age could offer, was in her early years betrothed to her cousin Andrew (a son of Carobert, King of Hungary), who, although brought up along with his wife at the Neapolitan court, 21 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ inherited the rough tastes and barbarous manners of his native country. Their union was the foundation of tragedy and civil war, for Andrew soon grew imperious, and the princely couple drifted apart ; the husband to assert an independ- ent right to the crown which he only held by virtue of his wife. He was urging Pope Clement VI. to consent to his coronation when he was assassinated, some say at the direct instigation of Joan herself. The rumours connecting the widow with the crime soon spread^ and Louis of Hungary, brother of the murdered man, invaded Naples to seek revenge. Joan, who had taken to herself another husband, fled with him to Provence to take shelter under the Papal See and to raise money and an army for the protection of her kingdom. The Pope, after a solemn investigation into the cir- cumstances of the murder, acquitted Joan of the charge. Taking advantage of her pressing need, he bargained with her to sell Avignon to him for eighty thousand crowns. This transaction did little credit to Clement, for although he and his successors retained the town thus acquired, the money was never paid — possibly, as is 22 <^ AVIGNON thought, on the ground that Joan was amply compen- sated by receiving the Papal absolution for the murder of her husband. Certainly Clement would have no ORANGE.. scruples, for his Court was as licentious as it was mag- nificent. Amidst its regal splendour gay and beautiful women played an important part, the Pope himself not 23 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ impervious to their influence. The Countess of Turenne, suspected of being one of his mistresses, and as rapacious as she was handsome, unblushingly sold positions and preferments procured by her ascendancy. Joan's subsequent matrimonial career, although full of variety (she had in all four husbands), was unproductive of issue ; and her presumptive heir, Charles, Duke of Durazzo, offended at her last venture in matrimony, took forcible possession of Naples, and, to preclude all opposi- tion to his newly acquired sovereignty, the deposed Joan was by his orders removed from his path by assassination. Avignon was ancient and illustrious before the Popes descended upon it and added a fresh and brilhant page to its already voluminous history. Far back in pre- Roman times, and even before the coming of the adven- turous Phoceans, it is probable that some prehistoric Celts had built a city on these same rocky foundations beside the silvery Rhone. The Phoceans from Marseilles saw its possibilities, for under them it became one of the richest cities in the Narbonne, and when, at their invita- tion, the Romans overran the valley and drove out the barbarians who threatened it and every other fertile spot in Europe, they added further to the fame of Avignon. 24 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON Very few vestiges of the ancient Roman town remain to-day. Successive ages quarried amongst the massive Roman constructions for material to rebuild their town according to their altering needs. In the Rue des Grottes, a narrow little street, two blocks away from the west front of the Papal Palace, the cellars of the seven- teenth- and eighteenth-century houses are formed by the arcades of what must have been a vast Roman building ; and minute investigators of the town have fancied they could trace the foundations of a theatre near to the Place St. Pierre. But coins and fragments of marble mosaics, Greek and Latin inscriptions, have been found in plenty all through the city, and are now housed and guarded in the Calvet Museum, one of the chief attrac- tions of the town. That Avignon should be lacking in more important Roman monuments such as are the pride of the neigh- bouring towns of Aries, Nimes, Orange, and others is quite easily accounted for. When one reads of the numerous invasions and sieges which the city suffered at the hands of vast barbarian hordes, who swept over the land like a devastating tornado during the fourth century of our era, and of the perpetual internecine 25 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ strife that during the dark ages took place between Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, and Saracens, one no longer feels astonished at the absence of Roman remains of any magnitude. The true history of the Avignon of to-day starts in the twelfth century, when, under circumstances of which the details are now obscured by the mists of time, it became a republic with its own laws and privileges, endowments and revenues, only restricted by the overlordship of its Bishop. The intermarriages of the feudal families, their numer- ous offspring, and the frequent divisions and subdivisions of territories and estates led to endless changes in the map of the southern counties of France. The quarrels and disputes of the Counts of Toulouse, Provence, and Forcalquier as to their rival rights of suzerainty over the town led to the setting up of a republic in Avignon. The Cathedral of Notre Dame des Doms, which at first glance might be mistaken for a continuation of the great mass of buildings which constitute the Palace of the Popes, is one of the earliest monuments or buildings in the town. Standing on an elevated site, the summit of the great Rock of the Doms, it was constructed early in a6 •o •o ■o AVIGNON the twelfth century, and remains to-day a choice specimen of Romanesque architecture. Like all the buildings in Provence, it has been carefully studied and severely criticised, various and conflicting opinions have been ITLTLP.n expressed about it, and different dates assigned to it. From the apex of the small octagonal structure that surmounts the great square tower of the Cathedral, a gigantic gilded figure of the Virgin looks down upon the town and surrounding country. 27 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ It is, as the French writers would say, " in the taste of the eighteenth century," hideous and out of place, a blatant, gaudy anachronism that vividly illustrates the truth of the old adage, " Tastes differ." Fragments of an old Latin inscription, removed from its porch and now in the Calvet Museum, have been cited by some as giving a history of this building. This stone document claims that the church was " founded by St. Martha, conse- crated by St. Ruf, enlarged by the first Christian Emperor Constantine, destroyed by the Saracens, saved by Charles Martel, and restored by the munificence of Charlemagne, and that Jesus Christ came to consecrate it with His own hand." But this legend has been proved to be as unreliable as so many other ecclesiastical traditions of mediaeval times. The porch has also been the subject of controversy. The pillars with their beautiful Corinthian capitals are either the remains of some more ancient building, probably a classic temple, or perhaps mediaeval copies of the antique. Above the door are the faded and damp-stained remains of a fresco of the fourteenth century. The figures of God the Father and two supporting angels can be made out, and bear strong traces of Byzantine mannerisms. 28 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON If they are, as has been suggested, the work of Simone Martini of Siena, he displays in this work little of the genius of his great contemporaries in art. And here it must be said that Avignon is not so rich in early paintings or frescoes of the first order as one would expect so mediaeval a town to be. The church is lit entirely from the dome, and the light that streams down from the eight windows above the choir is hardly sufficient to penetrate into the five deep vaulted bays of the nave. The style of the whole interior, for want of a better name, is called Romanesque, a style of the transition period between the rigid simplicity of the Roman times and the flowing ornamentation of the Middle Ages. Many of the most cherished monuments of the Cathedral were desecrated, pillaged, and destroyed during the Revolution, Spanish prisoners were lodged in it, and generally it was about as badly used as any of the religious buildings in Provence. It, however, still retains the fine marble chair which is assumed to be the ancient Papal throne, with the lion of St. Mark and the ox of St. Luke carved in deep relief on either side of it. In the small chapel to the right of the choir stands the 29 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ lovely tomb of Pope John XXII., an excellent piece of fourteenth-century pointed Gothic work which suffered much mutilation during the Revolution, when it was dislodged from its place and the statue of its occupant stolen together with the statuettes that adorned the niches round its base. The tomb was restored in the middle of the last century, and is now at rest in its original position within the little chapel founded by John XXII. himself. It is a work of great beauty, of slender spires and delicate mouldings, of pillared niches with finely pierced canopies, of tapering columns and richly crocketed and perforated gables : a monument all too elegant for the mentally and physically deformed Pontiff to whose memory it is erected. John XXII. was a man of humblest origin, Jacques d'Euse by name, born in 1244 at Euse. Son of a shoe- maker, he rose to the most elevated position of his time ; his talents, opportunities, and craftiness combining to bring about his elevation to the Papal Chair. Super- stitious and cruel, he stooped to methods of revenge that match in diabolic ferocity the most sanguinary reprisals of the buccaneers. One of his clergy, a bishop, was by his command flayed alive and torn to pieces by wild horses. 30 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON In his later years John got into sore trouble with the theological authorities by promulgating the heretical doctrine " that the Saints at death fell asleep and did not enjoy the beatific vision till after the resurrection." Whether this was a genuine conviction with him or no, he was forced by the religious opinion of his contemporaries to make a semblance of retracting it, but his monument seems to suggest that he believed it was to be his only resting-place until the last great day. His religious intolerance brought the Papacy into grave disrepute, but his grasping avarice greatly benefited its treasury, for at his death it was found that he had amassed for it eighteen millions of gold florins in bullion and about seven millions in plate and jewels. From the garden of the Rocher des Doms, which rises abruptly to a height of three hundred feet above the river and looks across the island of Barthelasse to the town of Villeneuve, there stretches far into the distance a land- scape which excites the imagination of the romantic poet, delights the eye of the artist, and even moves the prosaic to express themselves in superlatives. The old bridge of St. Benezet, or, to be more exact, the three arches that remain of it, is a distinguished relic of 31 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE <^ the twelfth-century Avignon. It ends abruptly about two-thirds of the distance across the left branch of the river, which at this point is divided by the low-lying island of Barthelasse. Grey in colour, desolate, for Pont S^J)£N£ZE.T <»>VICNON . ^^■^^:?^ traffic has long ceased to clank and rattle over its narrow causeway, this "fragment" gives a very good idea of what the ancient bridge must have been when it extended completely over the two channels of the river, and the island that divides them, right up to the foot of the 32 ^ <^ AVIGNON puting that Raymond was influenced by the devil, and urging all the counts, barons, and knights of Southern France to pursue his person and occupy and retain his domains. Thus was the cupidity of adventurous knights «>, coontrvt appealed to, and whilst the legions of the Church ostensibly fought for the uphold- ing of the faith, Ray- mond of Toulouse was forced into the position of defending his inheri- tance. Prompted by fear or contrition, or perchance a mixture of both, Rasnnond under- went a most humiliating penance in his anxiety to propitiate the enraged Innocent. Strong indeed must have been the motive wh.ch induced so powerful a 39 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ prince to submit to being stripped naked from head to foot, save for a linen cloth round his waist for decency's sake, and being thus led nine times round the pretended Martyr's grave in the Church at St. Gilles, his naked shoulders chastised the while with rods. The penance was accepted and Raymond was absolved, but his possessions had already been divided amongst the crusaders, of whom Simon de Montfort was Chief. The Comtat Venaissin was made over to the Papal See, a transfer in which the inhabitants of the independent town of Avignon who sided with Raymond did not concur. Through endless sieges the fortunes of the contending factions continually fluctuated. Simon de Montfort, now Count of Toulouse, succeeded in obtaining the re-ex- communication of Raymond ; but the latter never forsook the practices of the Holy Church, and with true humility continued to perform his devotions at the doors of edifices whose thresholds he was forbidden to cross. At the siege of Toulouse in 1216, death put an end to the crusading career of de Montfort, but the struggle went on as bitterly as ever. Every victory of the Papal forces continued to be celebrated by a massacre of the van- quished. 40 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON Ra57mond VII., a more resolute and energetic man than his father, ultimately regained the whole of Languedoc, and Amaury de Montfort sought the protection of his ally Louis VIII. of France, to whom he ceded the terri- torial rights acquired by his father. It was whilst on his way to take possession of his new domain that Louis advanced with a powerful army upon Avignon, demanding a passage through the town that he might cross the Rhone by St. Benezet's bridge. The inhabitants rightly dis- trusted the wily pretext, and submitted to a siege rather than open their gates. After a spirited defence of three months' duration the town surrendered, with the stipu- lation that only the Legate, Romain de St. Ange, and the chief lords of the crusaders should come within its walls. On the principle probably that faith need not be kept with heretics the pledge was broken, and the invading army entered the town, put its defenders to the sword, filled up its trenches, demolished its ramparts and towers, and pulled down its strongholds. Moreover, the citizens of Avignon were heavily fined for their adherence to a heresy which they were solemnly sworn to abjure for the future ; and, as if this were not enough, they were further compelled to maintain an armed and equipped body of 41 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ thirty men in the Holy Land to assist in the recovery of the sacred tomb from the Saracens. When Clement V., coerced by Philip the Fair, removed the Papal See from the Holy City and established his court in Avignon, he arrived in a town as unlike the existing one as it is possible to imagine, and took up his abode in the Monastery of the Dominican Friars. For Avignon was to him merely a stop-gap, and he never relinquished the idea of reinstating the Papal Chair in Rome. His successor, John XXII., the shoemaker's avaricious son, was not new to Avignon, having been its bishop before his elevation. He at once enlarged the small palace he had previously occupied ; but this edifice was completely swept away by the building operations of Benedict XII., who succeeded him. This Pope it was who erected the greater part of the mass of buildings which to-day form the most conspicuous and enduring feature of the town. To call it a palace was a misnomer ; it was a fortress, and one of the best examples of its period. It was a town within a town, and its designers were not so much con- cerned with creating a thing of beauty as in devising a refuge of irresistible strength. And yet its great plain 42 .£?« o >£?•■ AVIGNON walls have a beauty all their own, and the eye never tires of wandering over its various surfaces, unexpected, irregular, and vast. Its plan follows the irregular shape of the rock upon which it is founded, and was the work of succeeding Popes and their architects. Of the seven exiled Popes, two, Benedict XII. and Clement VI., were most ambitious builders, and we are only to-day beginning to discover the trae merit of the work carried out under their direction. For during the whole of the nineteenth century the buildings were in 43 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ the hands of the military, who transformed and mutilated them in adapting them to their requirements, and it is only recently that the walls with which they blocked up doors, windows, and staircases have been removed, as also the floors and partitions with which they divided the vast chapel and audience chambers. Most of the beautiful windows, specimens of early Gothic, which originally gave character to the whole building and more particularly to the courtyard into which they looked, disappeared when the place became a barracks, and were replaced by ugly square openings, totally out of keeping with the surrounding masonry. The utilitarian engineer had but little regard for the architectural and archaeological amenities of this monu- ment, and with ruthless hands desecrated rich carvings and rare frescoes, timbered ceilings and vaulted roofs ; therefore a large expenditure of money, time, and skill will be required to restore the Palace of the Popes to anything like its former splendour. The work of restoration is being carried out under the auspices of a Government which is animated by a spirit very different from that of many of its predecessors, and already the imposing audience hall and the magnificent 44 45 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON chapel above it have recovered much of their original appearance. In the Tour Saint Jean are two chapels, one above the other, the upper dedicated to Saint Martial, a bishop of Limoges, and the lower to the Saint after whom the tower itself is named. These little chapels were decorated in the time of Clement VI., about the year 1342. In the ceiling of the chapel of Saint Martial the vaults are covered with a series of pictures illustrating the life of the Saint. The colour is in a brilliant state of preserva- tion, the blues and warm browns being contrasted so as to give a very rich yet soothing effect. The irregularity of the designs, placed in an arbitrary fashion in the spaces between the ribs, strikes one at first as being strangely affected ; but the figures are free and expressive in their action, some of them being finished with a search- ing minuteness worthy of the Sienese School at its best period. The ribs of the vault are decorated with most beautiful Arabesque patterns, very suggestive of Byzan- tine mosaics. In the lower chapel the ribwork is similar but not so elaborate in detail, whilst the figures illustrating the life of St. John are on a much larger scale. Unfortunately 47 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ most of them are headless, a piece of vandaUsm attributed to a Corsican regiment under the command of Colonel Sebastiani, which was quartered in this part of the Palace. The incentive was not mere wanton disfigure- ment of the paintings, for the heads have all been neatly cut round, and most carefully removed, and the assumption is, that the soldiers earned considerable pocket-money by disposing of them to collectors. The Colonel has not been held blameless in the matter, but probably over- looked the depredations of his men because he enriched his own collection from the same source. The frescoes in the Garde Robe, a chamber of con- siderable importance, have recently been brought to light. The roof of the chamber is not vaulted, but has heavy wooden beams resting upon stone corbels and supporting the floor above. The walls of this interesting room are completely covered with paintings of the fourteenth century by an unknown artist. These have been restored, and one gets a very good idea of the original state of the apartment. On a background of grass and foliage figures in fourteenth-century costumes are de- picted, engaged in the pastimes of the period, hunting, fishing, falconry, and bathing. The restoration of the 48 INTERIOR OF CHAPEL OF ST. BENEZET, AVIGNON. p. 48] •■ AVIGNON background has not been very happy, the chalky coloui of the new work being a little too conspicuous. The question of the restoration of ancient pictures, \ ;T^^:^i^^w^ sculptures, and buildings is rather a vexed one, but the advocates of the " let alone " policy seem to overlook the fact that ultimately little would remain, as only such 4 49 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ massive monuments as the Pyramids can resist the ceaseless ravages of time and the elements. The diffi- culty is to determine the right moment to set about repairs which should be neither too long delayed nor undertaken prematurely ; but the process must be a perpetual one if posterity is to retain the structures and works of earlier times. The most zealous opponent of restoration could hardly take exception to the work that has been carried out in the two most important parts of the building — the great Audience Hall and the beautiful Chapel above it. The extraordinary plan of placing these two lofty buildings one above the other was a daring feat of building construction. The internal structure of both hall and chapel is un- expectedly beautiful, for the outside of this frowning fortress gives no indication whatever of the delicate refinement of the roof vaulting, the clustered pillars, the carved capitals and corbels that it contains. The Audi- ence Hall, or lower chamber, is divided into two naves by five clustered pillars, from which the elegant ribs of the vaulted roof outspread themselves. This Hall, which was for half a century the chief tribunal of Christendom, is about 150 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 50 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON 34 feet high, and is lit by eleven tall ogival windows, in graceful harmony with the airy vaulting of the roof. At the top of the great staircase that ascends from the entrance of the Audience Chamber there was recently " unearthed," or unwalled, the main doorway to the chapel above. This had been built over so completely by the military that its presence was for years unsus- pected. It has suffered much damage, but what remains gives indication of the rich beauty it once possessed. The Chapel has no pillars, being one great nave, its vault springing from engaged clustered columns, that run up the walls between the windows. The capitals of these columns are the only carving in this vast airy hall. The original builders, in the flights of their imagination after spaciousness, gave so little heed to the constructional problems involved in its achievement, that less inspired but more practical successors found it imperative to prop the outside wall with a great flying buttress which arches over a street running past the south side of the building, and seems to form a portion of the main building. On the vaults of the upper bay of the Audience Hall there are fragmentary remains of the frescoes that were executed by some artist or artists of the Sienese school. 51 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ The records of a hundred years ago show that the subjects which could be seen on the walls at that time were a "Last Judgment," "The Prophets," and a "Cruci- fixion." The military gentlemen of the last century are again the culprits : they could not see the merit or use of preserving such works, preferring to see the dormitories of their men whitewashed, clean, and bare, as befitted their occupation. These few traces of early Italian artists, who were employed by the wealthy court of the Papacy, are all that now remain of what was one of the chief glories in the fourteenth century. As one wanders through the courts, chambers, passages, prisons, and chapels of the fortress palace, the historical associations they possess fill the mind more than their present state. Page after page of history is opened up at every turn, and the Past rises before us, with its romance and war, cruelty and beauty, voluptuousness and spirituality, joys and sorrows, ambitions and dis- appointments, all mixed together like colours in a kaleidoscope. The inscription that was found on the porch of the 52 iA J SILVER, 5 QEU^TOWEll^niW PAPAL Pa U^.C^' 53 ^ ^ ^ AVIGNON ancient Cathedral might well be paraphrased into one that could be placed upon the Palace. " Clement V. thought of it ; John XXII. founded it ; Benedict XII. built it ; Clement VI. enlarged and enriched it ; Innocent VI. added to its glory ; Urban V. chastened it ; Gregory XI. abandoned it ; the Anti-pope, Pierre de Luna, defended and jeopardised it ; the Legates vandalised it ; the Brigands of Avignon desecrated it ; the Military transformed it out of all knowledge; and now a thoughtful RepubUc is endeavouring to restore it to its former state." Such an inscription would briefly set out the main facts of its long history for the last six hundred years. The worldly splendour of the Papal Court at Avignon, under the Pontificates of Benedict XII. and Clement VI., was notorious throughout Christendom, and when one reads of the indolent voluptuousness and dissipations of the debauched clergy who surrounded the Papal throne, one is quite prepared to learn that the grave scandals shocked even the lax moralities of the period. It was in vain that the last three occupants of St. Peter's Chair in Avignon sought to suppress the excessive pomp and luxury of their courts. Clement VI. had left behind him a reputation for being " a fine gentleman, a prince 55 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ munificent to profusion, a patron of the arts, but no Saint," and it is not difficult to imagine that the example of one in such exalted station was well calculated to encourage the wealthy churchmen to emulate his dis- sipations. Reformers and disciplinarians were bound to be un- popular with such a society, and one cannot help feeling that when (urged by the supplications of the Italians and the fanatical entreaties and vehement persuasions of St. Catharine, who went in person to plead with the Holy Father) the earnest Gregory XL left Avignon, he did so with a feeling of relief. At his departure, the licence of the clergy increased to such an extent that Charles V., shocked at the scandals of the Church, could endure them no longer, and sent soldiers under the command of Marshal Boucicaut to drive the Anti-pope, Pierre de Luna (Benedict XIIL), from the place. Pierre de Luna established himself in the Fortress Palace, and defended it with determination. He destroyed one of the arches of the Pont St. Benezet to cut off the approaches from the river ; and from the battlements and towers of his castle directed the engines of war with his own hands on the town and townsfolk, who suffered so severely that 56 •o ■^y' o AVIGNON Froint over a hundred houses and four thousand of the in- habitants were destroyed during the siege. After months of fighting the King's troops stormed 57 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ the fortress, and Pierre de Luna saved himself by means of secret passages and staircases leading to a vault from whence he got to the river side, and escaping across the Rhone, sought refuge under the protection of the King of Spain in his native country. Here, with two vicars, or priests, he kept up the pretence of being still the Pope, and each day from the top of a tower he blessed his distant friends and cursed his enemies. At his death his two followers, both of whom he had made cardinals, met in conclave, and one elected the other " Pope." The farce of this schism was ended by both of the exiled cardinals being bribed into reconciliation to Rome ; one being made Archbishop of Toledo, and the other Arch- bishop of Seville. It was during this siege that the fire broke out by which the Salle BruUe got its name ; but there is another story which attributes the origin of this name to the brutahty of one of the Papal Legates, when, inviting a number of the leading citizens of the town to a great feast in the chamber, he left them in the middle of the banquet and blew up the happy party with gunpowder. The reason for this " Gunpowder treason " was, that a near relative of the Legate had been assassinated by some 58 xS*- «^> >£?• AVIGNON citizens for taking liberties with a young maiden of good family belonging to the town. Whichever version is correct, the name has stuck tenaciously to this chamber. There is another tragedy asso- ciated with this Palace which is famous for evermore. The mas- sacre, which took place in the Glacifere, or Ice Tower, one awful night in the middle of November 1791, at the outbreak of the Revolution, set a fiendish ex- ample to the lawless brutality which, in 1793, expressed itself in a similar way in the Abbaye Prison in Paris. Jourdain Coupe- tgte, a fierce revolutionary, had earned his nickname two years previously by decapitating the corpses of the two Body-guards in the Marble Court of the Palace at Versailles, at the " insurrection of women." In June 1791 he was leading a body of nearly 15,000 men, who called themselves the Brigands of Avignon. Jourdain 59 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE o had dubbed himself "General," and with his associates was the terror of the Royalists. L'Escuyer, one of the Patriot leaders, accompanied by the crowd, entered the Church of the Cordeliers to hear Mass, or to mock at it. The aristocratic Papists (the Church and Royalist faction) resented this, and their hot southern blood being roused, the two parties came to blows. In the melee L'Escuyer was killed, and this roused the Patriots to demand an inquest. Impatient of delay, the Brigands under Jourdain took possession of the Papal Palace, and there imprisoned some hundred and thirty persons — men, women, and children — in the dungeons of the Glaci^re Tower. Then establishing themselves into a court-martial, with Jourdain as the judge, these Brigands very quickly disposed of all the prisoners with the naked sword — a most ghastly slaughter that makes the blood run cold. When the troops under General Choisi came to the rescue, Jourdain could not hold the castle, but was forced to take flight, escaping through the secret passages as Pierre de Luna had done four hundred years previously. If Avignon were to be deprived of her grand Papal Palace, she would still have enough churches and 60 AVIGNON monasteries left to give evidence either of the great popularity her church enjoyed, or of the power wielded in the Middle Ages by the religious orders. Churches and monasteries are scattered lavishly through the town, and from the rich stores of relics still possessed /=K W 1 C (S O W. by them, some slight idea may be gleaned of the wealth they possessed before the terrible Revolution. Every- where the stranger goes the story is the same. Vergers and guides tell of the past glories of this town : this stood here and that there; here was a monument, there a shrine ; but — they vanished in the Revolution. 6i A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ Terrible were these revolutionists of the South ; they gathered their harvests of rich plunder from the Church's hand with as little concern as a farmer gathers his com, or as a beggar his rags. Nothing was sacred from their vandal hands, and the tables were turned upon the Church, which in the centuries long gone had taken its heavy toll from all the country round. What a grotesque picture the Revolution presents ! Grim satire on the vanity of riches, the pomp of ceremony and fleetingness of power, and the emptiness of rank. Riches took wings, or rather were carried off on donkeys' backs to be melted down into coin and turned into bread for hungry mouths. Ceremonies, even the most sacred, were mocked at, and burlesque processions of ecclesiastical pageants excited the ribald laughter of the crowd. The powerful were humbled to the dust, and rank lost its head under the cruel slicing invention of Dr. Guillotin. The Royalist faction in Avignon had always been associated with the Order of the " White Penitents," and in the same way the " Black Penitents " had inherited the indepeiidence and rebellious spirit that animated the followers of Count Raymond of Toulouse. These rival factions, whose original opposition had been mainly 62 ^ o ^ AVIGNON religious, had now become political, and on the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo their differences became more accentuated and violent. The Royalists were in the ascendancy, and they revenged themselves upon their political and religious enemies with all the fanatical fervour of their Southern nature. The aristocratic and religious party had much to remember. The Glaci^re massacres of 1791 were per- petrated upon their class, and as in 1795 the Royalist libertines in Paris had indulged in ghastly reprisals against the red-capped revolutionaries, the White Penitents followed in Avignon the fashion set them by the capital. The enforced submission to the restored Bourbon Dynasty in July 1815 aroused the bitterest resentment ol the Black Penitents and their followers, just as the restora- tion of Napoleon had done their opponents earlier in March of the same year. At Carpentras, about fifteen miles from Avignon, a small garrison of the republicans, who had kept the tri- colour floating until July 15, were shot down by the Royalist Volunteers, although they had surrendered. Fanatical crowds of Royalists directed their hatred and anger against the Protestant section of the community. 63 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE • -£> AVIGNON The old folk in Avignon are all happy-looking ; the men especially are a jolly set of fellows, and although the snow of years falls on their heads and never melts, their hearts are young and warm, secure from Time's blighting frosts. They have studied the art of living, under their blue skies, and have mastered the difficult business. The girls and women are particularly well favoured, dark, 69 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ as becomes their Southern origin, well featured, favouring the Grecian rather than the Roman type. They have less of the imperious self-conscious dignity of their sisters in Spain and other Latin countries, and seem frank and more human and in touch with the life around them. The Church finds in them its chief adherents, faithful stUl in a country where once everybody believed and few inquired, and now, where few believe and all ask ques- tions. New vistas of thought were opened up in Provence during the Revolution epoch, and ever since the view has widened. In the churches nearly all the little brass plates on the prie-dieu chairs have the prefix Mme. or Mile, engraved upon them. One seldom comes across Mon- sieur. In summer, when the heat of the brilliant day gives place to the lovely glow of the Provencal evening, all Avignon sits outside around the tables that trespass in careless fashion upon the pavements. The gossip of the day goes round amidst unrestrained laughter and merri- ment. The caf6 on the pavement is as truly a Gallic institution as the " Bullring " is Spanish. Spain carried her " institution " to her remotest colonies, and France has done the same with the caf^. 70 •o «c* <^ AVIGNON The scene on a summer evening in the Place de I'Hdtel de Ville in Avignon is but a repetition on a smaller scale of what may be seen on any evening from one year's end to the other in the Cannebi^re at Marseilles, or farther OO/VT^ .^T-H TftlONEl distant still, across the Mediterranean in the Place du Gouvernement in the French city of Algiers. The Romans introduced their great national institu- tions for amusement, the amphitheatre and the circus, into nearly all their colonies, no matter how distant, and the modern Gaul has emulated the older and far greater coloniser in this respect. Even on the borders of the Great Desert the outside cafe is firmly planted amongst 71 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ a people who boast a longer civilisation than their con- querors — a feat which the Romans found impossible, for the amphitheatre of Rome made no headway amongst the conquered Greeks. But the Place, with all its gay life upon a summer evening, is not a lasting memory of Avignon. The picture that remains upon the mind is the view from the sus- pension bridge, just where it reaches the isle of Barthe- lasse. From this point of vantage Avignon, bathed in the evening glow, assumes a thoroughly mediaeval aspect. The dark masses of the Rocks of the Dom, the Cathedral, the Papal Palace, the church spires and belfries are all softened and mellowed in the mystic light of the after- glow in the west, until fancy suggests that the intervening years have, in some subtle way, been bridged over, and the beholder is back in those days when the proud prelates ruled like kings, nay despots, in this fortress town beside the Rhone. 72 VILLENEUVE 73 II VILLENEUVE The modern approach to the town of Villeneuve passes the Tower of Philip the Fair, a huge square block of masonry, erected early in the fourteenth century on the west bank of the river, at the spot where the old Bridge of St. Benezet reached the shore. The position was such that whoever held this tower had complete command of the bridge, and could render it useless to the inhabitants of Avignon when any conflict arose. Its presence here proves how determined Philip was to have the Papacy under his complete control, and at the time of its con- struction it was well-nigh impregnable, for it embodied the latest improvements known to the military genius of that day. Before this period the battlements of fortresses and castles were simply a series of embrasures and merlons with narrow oylets perforating the latter. The engines of war used in laying siege to these buildings were great 75 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ battering-rams, with iron points, which laboured inces- santly at the lower portions of the defences, until a breach sufficiently large to give passage to the attacking party was effected. The defenders' reply to this mode of attack was to lower cords or chains from the battlements, and with them entangle the battering-ram so as to put it out of action. The besieging party's efforts were, therefore, engaged in preventing the defenders from leaning over the para- pets ; the archers and bowmen directing their arrows and quarrels at any and every head appearing at the embra- sures above. Throughout the crusades this was the manner of defence and attack, and an improvement was introduced by a system of covering the battlements with temporary galleries, projecting over and supported upon wooden beams, thrust through holes left for the purpose in the masonry. This gallery was roofed with wood and tiles, whilst the floor had gaps between the planks through which the defenders could let down their ropes and chains or pour molten lead, burning sulphur, stones and other missiles upon the heads of those who advanced to enter breaches in the walls. But in time a method was discovered of successfully 76 TOWER OF^'O Philip. thE FAirj. 11 ^ ^ ^ VILLENEUVE attacking this device of the defending party. Great catapults, the most ancient of military engines, invented away back in the early classic times, were now employed to hurl barrels of burning tar up on to the temporary wooden shelters, which were soon demolished by this means. For centuries this method of attack and defence flourished, and it was not until the beginning of the fourteenth century that the machicolated battlements came into existence. From ancient times the old crenel- lated battlements had served through ages that were engaged in fighting. The ancient Egyptians and Assyrians used them, and it was reserved for the military genius of the Middle Ages to invent the machicolated parapet. This consisted of building out from the main walls of the tower or castle a curtain of masonry, supported by stone 79 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ brackets. This gave a thorough protection to the besieged, who could look down through the apertures between the corbels and drop their missiles, molten lead, burning sulphur and melted pitch, on to the heads of their assailants. The Tower of Philip the Fair is built with a machico- lated battlement, and over the small doorway there is an " 6chauguette," or small projecting tower, which com- mands the entrance. Even if the besiegers managed to escape the missiles dropped through the floor of the little tower, and forced their way into the porch, their task was not accomplished, for from the roof of the narrow passage leading into the large ground-floor chamber a long chimney runs right up to the top of the tower and down this projectiles could still be dropped. The tower contains three lofty chambers, one above the other, each of which has a finely vaulted roof, the ribs resting upon fantastically carved corbels. These cham- bers are in an absolutely perfect state of preservation, a rare thing in a fourteenth-century building in this part of the country. The narrow winding staircase lit by oylets, which betray the thickness of the walls, has at intervals little branch stairways of only a few steps. These give 80 'i^&^LM- '^ Lf^, J ifi GATEWAY, TARASCON. p. So] ^ ^ ^ VILLENEUVE access to small openings into the shaft that runs from the roof of the porch to the roof of the building. If for any reason the roof had to be abandoned, the besieged could still command the entrance through these apertures. The top chamber in the tower seems to have been used as a prison at some early time, for it is covered with pathetic inscriptions, cut with such care that they could only have been executed by persons upon whose hands the time hung heavily. One cannot know for certain that they are not the work of a besieged garrison, or the guardians of the tower, but the presence of strong iron bars across the outside of the windows, and other evidences, would indicate that prisoners occupied this tower at some time in its history ; and one would think that all these precautions to prevent the escape of a prisoner from this lofty room were hardly necessary : unless indeed the prisoner had a rope or was able to con- struct a makeshift one out of his clothing, he would be very unlikely to run far after he had dropped from this lofty tower on to the rough rocks below. The stone seat in one of the deep window embrasures in the second chamber has carved upon it, very neatly, the chequered pattern of a chess-board, the alternate 6 8i A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE >£?> squares being either raised or sunk. A similar " chess- stone " appears upon the floor of one of the chambers in the Fort St. Andre. One can only imagine them to be the work of prisoners, for, however much time the soldiers of the Guard had at their disposal, it is incredible they would have allot- ted themselves so hard and tedious a task when they could easily obtain a bit of wood to serve their purpose. And yet, who knows ? A prolonged siege might have reduced the gar- rison to its last stick, and the horror of their WINDOW s|Sf.'l"N"TH6r'" Tower of phiuip.' perilous position may have driven them to seek any diversion to drive away the contemplation of the fate awaiting them. The Fort of St. Andre commands not only the town which nestles around its foundations, but the river and the whole of the western side of Avignon. 82 ^ <^ ^ VILLENEUVE When Philip forced the miserable Pope Clement V. to settle in France, he anticipated the necessity of keeping a strict watch on the Papal residences, and although the great Palace which now stands in Avignon was not erected till some years after, Philip had the Fort St. Andr6 built to keep a guard. It was probably the proximity of this formidable fortress that caused the succeeding Popes to roar. Saint anorc. take such care with the fortification of their residence. It was from this fortress that the French troops besieged the Papal Palace when Pierre de Luna set up his pre- tensions and defended it against all comers. Two great towers form the entrance to the grounds upon which stood the Abbey of St. Andr^. During the troublous times of the sixteenth century these two towers were used as prisons, and the great Hall on the first floor, the Hall of the Chevaliers, served for a recreation-room. The flagstones of this great bare apartment are covered with inscriptions and devices which, although much worn, 83 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ show that the prisoners who carved them were educated men of the period. The skill displayed in many of these elaborate devices is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that the only instruments used were the soft pewter spoons the prisoners had for supping soup with. Indications of the prisoners' thoughts are embodied in the stones. A St. George and the Dragon, a Crucifixion, cannon, Maltese crosses, a figure of Justice, a device emblematic of abundance, skulls and crossbones, form some of the subjects upon which the prisoners tried their spoons and skill ; whilst one by a member of the " Carbonari " recalls memories of Silvio Pellico and his moving records of a prisoner's life. The venerable heavy doors that lead into these gloomy chambers groan with age each time they turn upon their well-worn hinges ; rusty iron bolts creak out the same melancholy discords that many years ago fell upon strained ears and sinking hearts. The twin towers of the Fortress of St. Andre remain a most imposing memorial of fourteenth-century military architecture. Standing on a rock, that at one time was an island of the Rhone, the fort commanded the sur- rounding country to an extent that made its presence a 84 85 ^ ^ O VILLENEUVE threatened to engulf it ; till during the reign of Louis Philippe, when the fires of the Revolution had died down, attention was directed to the ancient monuments of the country, and amongst other things it was discovered that 0MA3TER* this once beautiful and dignified tomb was being used by some ingenious and impious person as a rabbit hutch. Time's revenges are indeed bitter, but its healing power is none the less merciful, and to-day the tomb receives the homage of pilgrims actuated by more varied motives than those of former ages. 89 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ Some idea of the enormous power of Monachism, and the attraction it had for all classes in the Middle Ages, can be derived from the contemplation of even the ruins of these institutions in the Southern countries where they flourished. At the close of the thirteenth and all through the following century the Monastery and Convent reached the highest developments. The primitive hermits, who lived in bare seclusion, depriving themselves wilfully of all but the essentials of existence, were not only fifteen centuries removed from the powerful and luxurious monks of the Middle Ages, in point of time ; they are for ever unrelated to them in their methods of existence. The gradual stages in the evolution of the monastic idea melt into each other almost imperceptibly. From St. Anthony to the Monastery of Villeneuve is a far cry, and the anchorite of Thebes would have found it difficult to recognise in the monachism of later years the spirit that controlled his life. Instead of the rough cave of nature's carving, a suc- cession of chapels richly decorated by the hands of accomplished artists, whose talents were controlled by monastic wealth, cloisters with carvings that only practical 90 2 7. t O -J u, o Hi ui XliJ UJ-1 91 ^ ^ o VILLENEUVE and well-paid sculptors could achieve, galleries, chapter- houses, refectories, gardens, kitchens, stables, wine-cellars, all contributed to the enjoyment of the occupants. The worldly prosperity of the institution continued right down until the Revolution relieved it of its wealth and robbed it of its power. There was no lingering period of decay, but a sudden lightning stroke put an end to the Monastery of the Chartreuse. Its architecture represents all the styles of four hundred years. Here we see an early Roman-Gothic chapel, on whose walls linger remnants of Italian frescoes, painted when art was breaking away from the archaic tradition of the earlier Christian schools. Classic Renaissance sculpture adorns the fine entrance gateway, a masterpiece of the eighteenth century, the work of de Valfenier. Upon the shield facing the spectator is the inscription : " Domus Sanctae Marise. Vallis Benedictiones." All through the strange winding lanes, that once were cloisters and vaulted passages, incongruous squalid make- shift hovels mingle and jostle with the ancient buildings. In the centre of one of the cloisters there stands unfinished, but isolated, a classic rotunda that once sheltered a fountain, one of the latest additions to the monastery 93 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ when the end came. At the beginning of the eighteenth century buildings foreign to the character of the place grew up in the cloisters that surround this dignified rotunda, but the intervening space has fortunately been spared to give, as it were, a breathing space to one of the best preserved monuments in the ruined abbey. 94 TARASCON 95 in TARASCON Daudet has left on record the feelings of embarrassment that overcame him whenever he had to pass the little town of Tarascon. From the moment when the great white towers of the Chateau Ren6 burst upon his view until it was left behind he confesses to feeling ill at ease. He had made the name of the sleepy Proven9al town almost as famous in the nineteenth century as it had been in the fifteenth, and yet its natives were ungrateful and in no way pleased with the new celebrity that had been thrust upon them. Tartarin and Tarascon were, however, both pseudon5mis; but with the almost comic seriousness that is characteristic of the Provencal, the inhabitants of the little town felt convinced that the author was holding them up to ridicule. The real scene of the cap-shooting parties that Daudet had in view, when he penned the delightful exploits of the famous Tartarin, lies about fifteen miles on the other 7 97 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ side of the Rhone. " Tarascon," with its fine sonorous rolling sound, appealed to the ear of the author, who little thought that his choice of it as a part title for his work would draw down upon his head the execrations of a town. And they put their resentment into deeds too, for the book was banned and never could be bought in the place. Time works wonders : the resentment is now forgotten, and the adventures of the famous hero are pushed imder the nose of every passing stranger who puts foot into Tarascon. Tarascon is a junction on the Paris-Lyons and Mediter- ranean system, and its station is a busy hive of bustling noisy humanity whenever a train arrives or departs. Few of the many thousands of passengers who pass through the junction make any stay in the town, although it is well worthy of a visit. The two " monimients," as they are called, of the town are the Chateau Ren4 and the Church of St. Martha. These alone are more than worth the time taken to examine them, and the town itself is picturesque enough to warrant an inspection by the casual passer-by and a more prolonged stay by the lover of out-of-the-way corners. A wide boulevard, the Avenue de la R^pubhque (nearly 98 o- •o TARASCON every little town in Provence has its " Avenue de la Republique"), planted with four rows of great plane trees, leads from the station to the centre of this town of ,-»cl Cate^va-v. T/=\re/iKi^*RAJCOM alliance, the poor old King had frequently to dip his hand deep into his purse to ransom his unlucky daughter; The court of this old Bohemian was conducted on free and easy lines ; wandering minstrels and errant knights finding hearty welcome from the King, whose fame was naturally spread far and wide by those gentry. It was only in the 103 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE •^> last years of Ren6's reign that he was able to reside much at his castles of Aix, Tarascon and Les Baux — a short period of calm after a stormy life. He practised the arts of poetry, painting and music, and the surest passport any knight or troubadour could have to his good will and patronage was to be proficient in either of these accomplishments. A good listener might also come in for a share of his smiles, for he was notoriously fond of singing and reciting his own ballads and verses, or superintending some pageant or display. His poetic works were published in four volumes during the last century, but they have never attained any great celebrity. Of all his castles, Tarascon is the only one standing in anything like its original condition. As one looks up at the great round towers that swell out at the two corners of the main building (on the landward side), one realises what a sense of security its inmates must have indulged in, when besieged ; and how impotent the attacking party must have felt. The riverward towers are square, as are the two smaller towers on the north-east side. There is a girdle of slightly projecting stone-work upon one of the towers, about three-quarters of the way up, 104 ^ TARASCON that conveys very vividly to the eye its great circum- ference. Just past the south corner of this vast fortress, the Chateau de Montmorency rises on the other side of the river. In the clear air its outlines are sharp and well defined, and this distant toylike building helps to accen- tuate the size of the Chateau, near at hand. The outer windows on the great wall are grilled over with strong iron bars, for the Chateau is now a prison. These windows have dripstones over them, the carved ends of which are the only ornamentation on the great bare face of the building. For the rest, the corbels that support the machicolated battlements give a play of light and shade that, though simple, has a very rich effect, when con- trasted with the great plain spaces below. The battle- ments, with their embrasures and oylets, form a crown of great dignity to the whole building, and it is in such fine condition (doubtless carefully restored) that one has no difficulty in picturing the rich spectacle that must have been presented by a cavalcade of brightly habited knights and ladies with their attendants issuing forth on a sunny morning to fly their falcons or to attend some f^te at a neighbouring castle. No finer background for their 105 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ gorgeous costumes could be conceived than these plain creamy walls, which the rounded towers at each corner save from monotony. From the river the Castle does not present so bold an appearance, owing to the absence of rounded towers. At a little distance, when its size is not so apparent, it looks almost Greek in its restraint and refinement ; the row of brackets supporting the overhanging battlements suggesting a series of dentils under an irregular en- tablature. The inside of the Castle is well worth examination, but the prison authorities are a little particular whom they admit, and the visitor has to be conducted through the great building by a jailer, who, armed with great bunches of mediaeval keys, unbolts ancient doors on creaking hinges, and bolts them just as carefully after. The internal arrangements of a fourteenth-to-fiifteenth-century castle are simple, if massive, and hardly any alteration has been necessary to convert it into a prison. Very little has been changed since the good old King's time. The Chapel has only had a movable wooden partition placed down the centre of it, to separate the prisoners who have been condemned from those awaiting trial, when they io6 o TARASCON attend " the service." The cells for solitary confinement, with their elaborate blacksmith-wrought fastenings, would defy the ingenuity of any " Jack Sheppard " seeking to escape. There is not much carving or sculptured work in the Castle. It has been sparingly used, except in the porch of the Chapel, which is in fine ogival style with delicately rWlVn^ KiNc (%e.Ne ^ CA.5Tu.e. carved archivolts. The principal chamber of the King is a noble apartment, in which the ceiling is, or rather was, a feature. It is heavily timbered, and although the panels have been removed to enrich some museum or private collection, sufficient remains to give an idea of the importance of this apartment. The embrasures of the windows are of the depth of the wall — that is, about twelve feet — and they form small chambers, around which are great stone slabs, that were used as seats. 107 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ Opening off the Royal Apartment is the Salle du Garde. From this room a door formerly opened into a passage that communicated with galleries extending all over the building. On the other side of the circular staircase, that leads up to the King's apartment, there is a sexagonal chamber with a timbered panelled roof. This was occupied by the ladies-in-waiting on the Queen, whose apartment, immediately above it, had a fine vaulted roof. In such wonderful preservation are these apart- ments of five hundred years ago that they want but tapestries and furniture to be as habitable as ever they were. One can easily, in imagination, fill these chambers with the laughing maids of honour, bending over their tambours and tapestry work, or poring over some book with its delicately painted pages in which the romances of the Troubadours were set forth — one reading aloud for the benefit of the others some long narration of days gone by : perchance the very popular story, rhymed in true Troubadour fashion, about the inmates of the Castle of Beaucaire, that from the windows of the King's and the Ladies' apartment could be seen so distinctly in the sunlight. This story of Aucassin and Nicolete has been translated io8 >£> -iy> TARASCON from the Proven9al language into English by Andrew Lang. It relates how the Count of Valence was at war with the Count of Beaucaire, and was always outside the walls of his castle, to the great annoyance of everybody. The Count of Beaucaire was old and frail, and possessed 1 T/vilA-^tON. of only one son, his hope and pride. This youth, Aucassin by name, was deeply in love with a dark-eyed maid, a slave girl, Nicol^te, that a captain in the town of Beau- caire had purchased from the Saracens in Carthage, and had adopted. The old Count, furious at the thought of his only son making such a mesalliance as to marry a Saracen slave girl, ordered the young man to go out and 109 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ fight against the enemy of their house and to lead the retainers of the family of Beaucaire on to victory. At the same time the Count prevailed upon Nicol^te's owner to have her put in seclusion, out of reach of Master Aucassin. Whilst the youth is wringing his hands in despair, the city is besieged by the Count Valence, and the old Count of Beaucaire upbraids his son for his inactivity. Then Aucassin urges his suit to his father; but the old man will not give way, and only consents to allow the lovers an interview if Aucassin proves his mettle in the battle that is raging around them. The bold youth arms himself and rides out of the castle, and in an absent-minded mood goes right into the arms of the enemy. When he does realise his position and comes to himself he does doughty deeds, in his turn taking Count Valence captive, and, returning with him to the besieged castle, demands that his father should keep his engagement and grant him the promised interview with his lady-love. The old man refuses, and Aucassin is so overcome with rage that he releases his prisoner — an act for which his father puts him in close confinement. Time passes, Nicolfite escapes from her prison and goes no -£> O TARASCON amissing. Count Beaucaire, thinking that all danger to his son is now over, releases him from prison. One day Aucassin comes across Nicolete in a wood where she has been hiding, and together they go in a boat and make their escape down the river, only to be washed out to sea and captured by pirates. Their troubles are increased by their being separated. Aucassin is ransomed by his father, and Nicolete is sold to the Saracens. You would think that this was the end of her tale. No ; she escapes disguised and finds her way back to fair Provence, where she makes a living by singing ballads up and down the country, eventually arriving at Beaucaire, where Aucassin is now Count in his father's stead. Of course he dis- covers his long-lost lady-love, and the story ends, as all good stories should, with the hero and heroine living happily ever after. From the extensive roof of the Chateau a great panorama lies before the spectator. The Rhone for many a mile away to the south glistens in the sun- light until it is lost to view near the rising ground upon which with good glasses the Arena at Aries can be discerned. To the north the two lofty towers of Chateau Renard rise up, whilst in the far, faint dis- III A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ tance the snow-capped peak of Mont Ventoux floats in the haze. Provence is well supplied with lofty points of vantage, from which extensive prospects are before the spectator, and enable him to understand somewhat why Provence was chosen as a home for chivalry and a garden for romance. Castles rise up on nearly every point of vantage. Great cypress-trees shelter the low-lying fields. Farmhouses nestle in the protection of rising ground, upon which they would not, like the great stern castles and watch-towers, be able to retain a foothold when the mistral sweeps the heights. For the elements are at their strongest in Provence. The sun shines brightly and burns fiercely, the winds blow violently and chillingly, and the rains fall in terrible earnest in " this land of plenty." Greek, Roman, and Gaul have all fought for existence on nearly every foot of its great plains and scattered heights, and travellers from distant lands have often fallen a prey to the dangers that such a country could so easily harbour. All around are castles that have stood many a siege when occupied by warriors whose history was one long 112 113 ^ ^ ^ TARASCON record of fights against Saracens and infidels abroad, and feudal chiefs at home. High up on the walls of the Castle of Tarascon one can see evidences of the ordinances of later times. The end of the eighteenth century has left its mark here as on most of the strongholds and buUdings in Provence. The only other important building in Tarascon is the Church of St. Martha ; but it is the most significant that the little town possesses, for it perpetuates the legend which gives the town its name. The story of St. Martha and her victory over the devastating terror of the country-side, " The Tarasc," is but a variation of the familiar St. George and the Dragon legend which embodies the pietistic faith in the overthrow of evil by good. This legend of St. Martha, along with that of the "Stes. Maries," belongs exclusively to Provence, and itpermeates the whole religious tradition of the delta of the Rhone. The story or legend runs that, after the crucifixion of Christ, the holy women who had remained faithful to their Lord, Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, Mary Salome, Martha with Sara, their black servant and Lazarus, were put in a boat by the Jews and sent out to sea. After an adventurous voyage of nearly 115 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ two months, they landed on the extreme west point of the Camargue in a little village that was inhabited by some poor Phocean fisherfolk. The legends vary as to the subsequent routes taken by the illustrious voyagers, but they seem all to agree that Martha found her way to Tarascon ; Mary Magdalen to St. Baume, not far from Marseilles, where her bones are believed to be under the Chapel of the Grotto ; St. Lazarus accompanied her to Marseilles, where the legend connecting him with that city is still held in esteem by the pious. Early in the fifteenth century. King Rene, who had an excellent taste for romantic legends, had a vision in which the holy women of " Stes. Maries " appeared to him and revealed the spot where their mortal remains were lying neglected. The sentimental King sought them and had them placed in the church, which he rebuilt on the spot where they first landed, and altered the name of the church from " Our Lady of the Sea " to " Les Maries." Up to this time the little church of the tenth century, at this spot, went by the name of " St. Mary of the Boats," or " St. Mary of the Sea." This name was probably but the Christian of an older Pagan name, given to the church or temple that stood on ii6 THE POSTERN, LE3 BAUX p. Il6] o- <^ TARASCON its site, a name likely enough derived from the fame of the Syrian prophetess Martha, who accompanied Marius on his expedition into Gaul, a hundred years before the Christian era. And presumably there existed an earlier temple still upon this lonely swamp, a temple to some deity or goddess whose protective care the earliest Phoceans sought to procure by votive offerings. How- ever this may be, Rene decided that the " Stes. Maries " were Mary, the mother of James, Mary Salome, and Sara, the black servant, who had remained in the little seaside village converting the inhabitants to the Christian faith. Thus the great patron of romantic story inaugurated a legend that has persevered until to-day, for pilgrims from all parts still pay visits to " Les Maries " by the sea, to receive benefits and healing from the relics of the two Maries which are exhibited annually, whilst the remains of the black servant, Sara, strangely enough exact and receive homage of the gipsies from Bohemia. St. Martha, who went first, on leaving her feUow- voyagers, to Aix, received there a deputation from a neighbouring place, Tarascon, which unfolded to her their sad plight. A great monster was ravaging their country- side, and their only hope was to get some one endowed 117 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ with miraculous power to come to their assistance. The good Saint immediately set out for the terror-stricken town, where she received a great ovation from the as- sembled inhabitants. Without delay, armed with nothing but a small wooden cross, she sought the monster in the woods near by, and on finding it, held up the sacred emblem in front of it. The monster's bellowings ceased at once, for the terror lay dead at her feet, its great jaws red with the blood of its last victim. St. Martha returned to the village and exhibited to the grateful populace the monster tied to her girdle. King Ren6, fond, as is well known, of pageants, pro- cessions, and fgtes, was the founder of the annual festival of the " Tarasque," which was celebrated until quite recently in the month of June. A great pantomime monster was carried round the streets by sixteen men concealed in its body. It was led by a village beauty dressed in imitation of the Saint. The head of the crea- ture had jaws that were movable, and they could be worked so as to grip any venturesome person who came close enough. When too hotly assailed by the townsfolk, fireworks were discharged from the eyes and different parts ^ of the great canvas body. The old traditional ii8 >o £?> -^ TARASCON from an artist's standpoint, miles of the larger canvases that cover the main walls. An old altar-piece in another of the shallow side-chapels is a fine piece of sixteenth- century decorative painting. Enclosed in a cheap-looking painted cupboard that stands in the sacristy is the reliquary that holds a " veritable " portion of St. Martha's skull. This reliquary is not ancient, but is a reproduction of an original that was presented to the Church by Louis XI. in 1478, and which, in the unhappy starvation times of the great Revolution, was sent to the Genoese merchants by the revolution- aries in exchange for wheat to the value of £4,000. It was a great loss to the Church in more ways than one, for in the head of the bust were placed the frontal bones of the patron Saint of Tarascon. This bust was of soUd gold, and round it were beautiful little enamels which pictured the Ufe of St. Martha ; an exquisite statue of King Louis XL represented him kneeling in adoration at the base of the bust. The reproduction is in gUt, and contains a portion of the base of the Saint's skull tied with a piece of pink ribbon. The tomb in the crypt had of course to be opened to obtain these. Beautiful as the reproduction is, and veritable as is the relic it contains, 123 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ it is doubtful if the pious Tarasconaises are reconciled to the loss of the most precious ornaments that the town possessed. Down in the dark, damp crypt of the Church, lit only by the entrance, lies a tomb of real dignity and beauty. This crypt is a part of the older church of the twelfth century, and is without any particular grace or beauty, acting as a foil to the monument it enshrines. This representation in marble of the entombment of St. Martha is of real merit. The recumbent figure of the Saint lies in a peaceful repose that is nobly expressed. A figure of Christ supports the head, and one of St. Fronto the feet. The anachronism of associating St. Fronto, who was a Bishop of P^rigueux in the fourth century, with an event that presumably took place in the first, does not seem to have troubled the author of this tomb. But in a land of Romance one should close one's eyes to such unromantic things as dates, and accept without question the stories woven by a clergy that seem to have been largely endowed by the same spirit that inspired the Troubadours of their sunny land. 124 LES BAUX 125 IV LES BAUX The little chain of rugged hills with fantastic contours, which breaks away from the great Alpine range and juts into the peaceful vaUey of the Rhone, is called " Les Alpilles," or little Alps. On the south side of this small mountain chain, upon cliffs that stand almost isolated from the main group, lie the ruins of the ancient Provencal town of Les Baux. The approach to this extraordinary place from over the mountain chain is full of interest and surprises, if one starts out from St. Remy, which lies well over to the north. The ascent by the winding road that curves and twists round the grea:t hills is a fitting preparation for the scenery that lies to the south, for the distant hilltops are crowned with great rocks, carved and chiselled by nature into such shapes that the eye continually mistakes them for buildings erected by the hands of men. The tall cypress-trees that in the plains spire up into 127 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE o the sky disappear as one ascends, and few shrubs or trees clothe the bald hillside. Wild thjmie and lavender betray their presence by the fragrance of their perfume. Rabbits burrow amongst the undergrowth ; hawks hover high over- head, and with keen, penetrating vision sweep the rugged landscape in search of prey. Few other signs of life disturb the quiet of the lonely hills. From the crest of the chain, just before the descent into the great plains of La Crau, a weird scene breaks upon the eye. A valley of rocks, so fantastic, so un- earthly, that one can easily credit the Proven9al poet 128 •<2>« •^> LES BAUX Mistral's belief that it was here that Dante got the inspiration for his graphic description of the topography of the infernal regions. It is a valley of death, of ghosts of skeletons, rocks naked and gaunt, altogether baffling description. As the limestone of which these rocks are composed is admirable for building purposes, quarrymen have been at work upon the scene, and the great square doorways, or openings, cut into the grotesque formless masses accentuate the unreality of this spot. One could imagine it inhabited by strange monsters of human shape bereft of man's feelings and emotions. But the wild mysterious 9 129 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ grandeur of the valley constitutes only half the astound- ingness of the place. For on a great precipitous rock, at the end of it, stands the town of Les Baux, half-built, half-excavated, more than half-ruined, a strange confusion of man's and nature's architecture. Above the town, which is carved and built upon a plateau half-way up this mountain rock, a castle rears its ruined towers. This gaunt fortress looks right over the great, flat plain of La Crau to the distant blue waters of the Mediter- ranean, over to the lands about fifty miles distant upon which one of the world's most decisive battles was fought, when Marius with his legions laid 200,000 Ambrones dead upon the field. The great plateau of La Crau has undergone much change since Roman times. In the fifteenth century a canal was dug across its arid surface, and lands that were once marshy swamps and barren stony ground are gradually yielding to the persuasive hand of the agricul- turist, and producing rich harvests of grapes and olives. mulberries, and almonds. In the Middle Ages this stronghold of Les Baux was the capital of one of the most powerful lordships in the whole county of Provence, and the independent sovereignty of 130 ^ ^ ^ LES BAUX its rulers was unquestioned by neighbouring and distant nobles alike. It was an important and celebrated town, its name familiar wherever the minstrel sang his song or the troubadour his lay. Its population mustered more than four thousand strong ; but that was long ago, in the days when a highway connected it with Orgon and Aries. Year by year, ever since this was abandoned, the town's prosperity has declined ; its churches, convents, and castle have lost heart, for their inhabitants have fled. The wind howls through its abandoned ramparts, and the sun's rays penetrate into once gloomy dungeons. Yester- day four hundred souls possessed the town ; to-day there are scarce a hundred who find shelter among its ruins ; to-morrow Nature will again take possession, and man's architectural efforts will have crumbled away. Throughout all the many changes that Provence has experienced in its rulers, the ancient family of Des Baux clung tenaciously to their rock fortress, and their name was held in high esteem. Their coat of arms, a star with sixteen rays, can still be seen along with several others within the ruined Chapel of St. Claude. It occurs also in other parts of Provence, and typifies the proud claim of the Des Baux to a direct descent from one of the Kings 131 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ who, guided by a star, came from the East to lay rich gifts before the Infant Christ lying in the manger at Bethle- hem. The descendants of the Oriental King, proud of their origin, added to their titles of Princes of Baux those of Princes of Orange, Viscounts of Marseilles, Counts of Provence, Kings of Aries and Vienne, Seneschals of Piedmont, Podestas of Milan, Counts of Milan, along with many others. To follow the fortunes of the Des Baux family, the feudal chiefs of the surrounding country, is to dip deep into the history of Provence, for their names are con- stantly cropping up over divisions of land and inherit- ance by marriage with neighbouring and distant families. Suffice it to say that from the time of Count Leibulfe, who founded the house and lived probably in the eighth century, to that of Honor6 Camille de Grimaldi, from whom the marquisate of Baux was taken by force during the Revolution, its princes have been related to nearly every great family in Europe. The Chateau, which has resisted many a siege, is of almost monolithic construction ; its ramparts, towers, staircases, banqueting halls carved out of the rocks. The builders have made use of the natural foundations, and the result of the natural and artificial 132 -£?> <^ O LES BAUX construction is one of the most fantastic castles that ever existed. When Rene succeeded to the Barony of Baux the town Was in a thriving condition, and in 1444 he set about cr^\ATSAU. RENARD. putting the castle, much battered by successive sieges, into repair, restoring the ramparts and towers ; and, in- ternally furnishing it with all the resources the period could command, made it over to his second wife Jean de Laval for her lifetime. Old King Rene, artist, poet, and musician, found in Baux an ideal spot after his own heart. 133 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ For nearly three centuries Baux had been a favourite rallying-place for the Troubadours and the ancient " Court of Love." The records of the numerous wars and forays in which the Lords of Baux and their retainers were engaged have not, however, aroused the curious interest of later times so much as have the town's romantic associations with the literature of the dark ages, written in the dialect of the Langue d'Oc, better known as Proven9al. This language, which still lingers in the South of France, arose gradually out of the corrupted Roman dialects of the first centuries, throughout the colonies occupied by the conquering Empire of the West. The particular variety of dialect known as Proven9al gained a wider celebrity than that spoken in Iberia, or in the districts north of the Loire. It was developed from the old Romance language, and about the eleventh or twelfth century was extensively in vogue among the cultured classes throughout Europe. A crop of poets sprang up in amazing profusion in the valley of the Rhone, and all who had pretensions to learning and refinement wrote in the language of Romance until well on into the fifteenth century, when a decay 134 >e> ■/y> LES BAUX set in and other languages developed into more per- manent and literary forms. The Proven9al language, with its smooth and pleasant sounds, seemed eminently adapted to the feelings and voluptuous thoughts of a people who delighted in song, music, and the dance. The Troubadours, or finders (inventors), sprang from all classes of the people, and the admiration which was accorded their productions, combined with the Hattery and praise bestowed upon the authors, tended to awaken latent vanity and draw thousands into the field of poetry. Princes and Knights, the aristocracy of the country, entered into this domain ; and lays, thousands of verses long, recounted the adventures of the Brave Knights who 135 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ fought for the Cross, and incidentally for themselves, against Saracens and Turks. The lack of any other literature, unless among a few obscure monastic students, gave a great impetus to these lays, written by the Troubadours and sung sometimes by themselves, but more often by the strolling minstrel who learnt by heart the long-winded romances. Of a lower order were the Jongleurs, who entertained the Lords and Ladies in their great halls in winter, and in the courts and gardens in the summer months. They were tumblers and acrobats, who practised every kind of antic and contortion to amuse audiences who knew neither theatre nor music-hall. An old romance relates how one of these Jongleurs, fallen upon evil days, sought refuge in a monastery, where he assumed the cowl. Distressed at his ina- bility to render the Holy Virgin sacred service, and worried lest this might be discovered by the inmates of the convent and lead to his dismissal, at last, in all humility, he betook himself into a vault at the hour when the monks were engaged in their devotions. Here, in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin, divesting himself of hooded gown, he went through a series of 136 CHATfc/NU RENAM?D' 137 LES BAUX antics and contortions with such determination and fanatic zeal, that at last he fell in a fainting condition upon the hard cold floor. When he recovered, he rejoined the brethren in the refectory and partook of food, which he ate tremblingly and with sore misgivings. The poor tumbler continued his eccentric devotions at matins and vespers daily, always in fear that the Abbot should discover his strange worship and insist upon some more becoming form of service beyond his power to render. The Abbot and brothers, anxious to know the " why and wherefore " of the tumbler's daily visit to the lonely crypt, concealed themselves to witness his devotions. The astonishment they felt on observing his extraordinary method of doing homage to the Queen of Heaven was further increased when they beheld the glorious Lady, crowned and clothed in shining raiment, accompanied by the angelic hosts, descend from the roof and minister with loving care to the unconscious acrobat. The unearthly visitors vanished when the exhausted tumbler revived, and he returned to his cell, equally unconscious of the heavenly ministrations and the espionage of his brethren. The story goes on to relate, in the sequel, how the Abbot honoured the tumbler ever 139 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ after, admitted him as a perpetual brother to the mon- astery, recognised the efficacy of his worship, and pointed out to those whose sense of religious propriety was shocked when the story of the tumbler's canyings on leaked out, that the true spirit of religious service was of more account than its method. This romance throws a little ray of light on some aspects of life in the Middle Ages, but there are many more, less elevated in sentiment, which depict the curious conception of chivalry, religion, superstition, and love common at a period when society was emerging from the darkestage that Europe has experienced since the advent of civilisation. The literature and traditions of the Troubadours is extensive, and the lives of nearly one hundred and fifty of them have been written. Nearly every king and great prince in the Middle Ages had a troubadour attached to his court. Richard Coeur de Lion, who had pretensions to poetry himself, patronised and encouraged some of the most famous of the fraternity, such as Amaud, Daniel, Vidal, and Flouquet of Marseilles. The Princes of Baux were most enthusiastic patrons of the poetic brotherhood, the tourney, the joust, and that most curious pastime of the age, the " Court of Love." - 140 •o •<:?> ■o LES BAUX These parliaments of Love, which were the outcome of the cult of gallantry, flourished in Provence, and par- QOE-EN JE-ftNNE.^ ■C£">. 3Aup< ticularly in the romantic town of Les Baux. The walled " Court of Queen Jeanne," as it is called, can still be seen 141 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ in the valley, and a very beautiful little pavilion of Renaissance architecture adorns the spot. In this tribunal women were the only judges and reigned supreme. Troubadours came from all parts to extol the beauty of their mistresses, and put nice points relating to the etiquette of gallantry before the Court. Contesting parties argued out these impossible subtleties with grave seriousness, and the pedantic ingenuity of the Council and Court was exercised to determine imaginary cases, in which bright glances, stolen kisses, and furtive hand- squeezings constituted the most important evidence. Another part of the diversion offered at these gatherings was the recital by the princely troubadours of their songs, to the accompaniment of the viol and guitar, played by themselves or by the jongleurs. It was at this coiurt that Guillaume de Cabestan sang the praises of the Princess B^rengfire, wife of Lord des Baux, and those of her sister-in-law, Tricline Carbonnelle. These songs are largely concerned with the adventures of princes and knights in the domains of Love and War, and descriptions and histories of violent passions, to which the warm- blooded peoples of the South were pecuharly subject. So obsessed were these early poets with the fascination 142 ^ ^ ^ LES BAUX of the greater passions that one can hardly wonder at some of the fantastic turns their songs and stories took. Most of them have failed to stand the test of time ; their affectations and pedantic unreality failing utterly to reflect natural feelings and spontaneous emotions. The strange relationship that grew up between the troubadours and the great ladies to whom they offered their platonic admiration and regard, is sufficient to brand many of the lays with the stamp of insincerity. Each troubadour was, by a sort of unwritten code, bound to choose some lady-love ; it did not matter if she were married — indeed, she generally was — and to this divinity, were she fair, fat, or ugly, he offered lays and songs that praised her beauty in extravagant terms. As the troubadour was generally dependent on the patronage of the great for his bread, it was common to select the wife of his patron for this high honour. Doubt- less if the troubadour were of humble or lowly origin, the difference of his estate from that of the object of his poetic worship would prevent any undue familiarity being encouraged, although many of the earlier love-songs of the troubadours affect a deep and " love-at-a-distance " kind of worship of the fair divinity. There are many 143 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ stories told by the troubadours themselves that unblush- ingly proclaim that the relationships existing between worshipper and worshipped were such as to disturb domestic peace ; but when outraged husbands wreaked their just wrath upon these sighing swains, the sympathy of the narrator of the story is invariably on the side of the author of the trouble. One of the best known of these tales is as follows: Guillaume de Cabestan, before mentioned, made love in troubadour fashion to the wife of Rajmiond de Seillans. Ra5Tnond, doubtless, saw more in the attachment than he thought consistent with his honour, and to revenge himself upon the guilty lovers, he slew the poet, tore out his heart and had it cooked and served up for dinner. After his unsuspecting spouse had eaten of the dish, and he had made known to her the loathsome nature of her repast, the lady lost her reason and threw herself from a window on to the rocks below. The Castle of Baux is now a crumbling mass of ruins. Every year sees additions to the collection of fallen boulders that lie like tumbled giants on the sloping terrace below. The only chapel still in use, the best-preserved building 144 MONTMAJOUR. p. 144] •c^ LES BAUX in the dismantled town, is dedicated to St. Vincent, the patron saint of Les Baux, It has a central nave flanked by two side aisles of unequal proportions and different dates, and of these the more ancient, to the right of the entrance, has little side chapels, cut out of the rock which forms the south side of the edifice. Towards the end of the last century, for unexplained reasons, excavations were made in the crypt of the church, and several of the heavy slabs of stone that covered tombs were raised. Bodies, clad in rich garments, in a 10 145 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ perfect state of preservation, were discovered, which, however, crumbled away on being handled and exposed to the air. All that remained were the long tresses of golden hair that belonged to a young girl, supposed to have been one of the princesses of Baux, whose wonderful beauty had long ago incited the troubadours to eulogy. The value of this find was quickly appreciated by the keeper of the languishing little hotel that stands in the " Place Fortin." He obtained possession of the " Golden Tresses," and, with an eye to business, altered the name of his hostelry to " A la Chevelure d'Or," and exhibited the relic to his customers. After this curious relic was recovered by Mistral and lodged in the Museum which he founded in Aries, the sign of the hotel was changed to " The Hotel Monaco," a name obviously suggested by the connection of the town with the Grimaldi family, who were presented with the marquisate of Les Baux by Louis Xni. in 1642. But change and decay is the key- note of Les Baux ; the name has again altered with the declining fortunes of the town, and, as if in mockery of the destitution and poverty that lie around it on all sides, the sign upon the weather-beaten walls of the neglected hotel reads " H6tel de Monte-Carlo." 146 «i?> <^ LES BAUX An old man upon whose hatband the word " Guide " is with difficulty discerned, one or two stray hungry- looking dogs, a few wild-looking fowls, the H6tel Pro- prietaire, and innumerable flies constitute the crowd who 147 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ forgather daily in the most popular resort of the town. The arrival of a traveller awakens but mild excitement in Les Baux. Two human hearts may beat a little quicker in the hopes of gain. The dogs sniff round the stranger with bewildered curiosity, and the flies buzz gleefuUy on discovering a new victim to torment. The guide (and a guide who knows the place is necessary to the stranger), bent with age, is quite in harmony with the surroundings. With a pathetic humour he leads his clients up the " Grande Rue," and teUs them, with a smile, that it is not like the " Cannebidre " at Marseilles, for the only caf6 in Les Baux is the H6tel de Monte-Carlo. At every step he points to some ruined doorway with fine carving of the seventeenth century ; windows with beautifully moulded mulhons and inscriptions ; houses once inhabited by noble families whose fame still survives. At every turning, in front of every doorway, in the ancient chapel, in the roofless convent of the White Penitents, at the cemetery and the ChS.teau, the old man shakes his head and croons to himself in a voice ineffably sad, " Ah ! Les Baux ! " Nearly every house in the town is, in some part, hewn out of the rocks, and what carving and masonry they possess is generally on their fronts and gables. The 148 <^ •o o LES BAUX kitchens and cellars are excavated in the rocks. The ruins of the Chapel of St. Catharine show still the remains / of the architecture of the thirteenth century, but the other four churches that once ministered to the reUgious population contain only vestiges of their former style. 149 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ Of the larger mansions of the town, the most important is that of the " H6tel de Manvilles," at the end of the Grande Rue, a fifteenth-to-sixteenth-century building, the chief features of which are the beautiful windows, framed in with delicate classic pilasters, supporting entablatures composed of simple and dignified mouldings. On one of the wings of the building the inscription " Post Tenebras Lux 1571," on the frieze over a window of great beauty, recalls that Claud IL, one of the counts of this house, espoused, at the instigation of his Protestant wife, the cause of the party at the Reformation. The mansion of the Porcelets, near by the Church of St. Vincent, has been restored, and, after being an orphanage, is now the school for the handful of children who have had the misfortune to be born amidst these melancholy surroundings. Few of them will remain in their native town after they have grown up, and one would imagine that the memories they will carry away with them of their early days will seem like some fantastic dream. The Porcelet family were of the highest social rank in the fourteenth century, and they were also very numerous. These were the first nobles of the town of Aries and 150 o ^ ^ LES BAUX Marquises of Maillane, friends of King Rene, and the object of his satire. Regarding the origin of their name, there is a legend that relates in detail how a haughty dame of this family flouted and taunted a poor beggar-woman with having a family too large for a person in her miserable condition to maintain. The woman was, so the story says, really a fairy in disguise, who laid a spell on the high-born dame, condemning her to give birth to as many children as a sow, which happened to be near by, should bring forth little pigs. In time the sow had a litter of nine, and when the great dame had, in the course of time, a family equally large the people nicknamed them Porcelets, a name that stuck to them ever after. These legends of the past, when recounted on the spot, have a fascination that is enhanced by the romantic surroundings. One stumbles upon curious reminders of feudal customs, such as the deep narrow cisterns which received a tithe of all the wine made in the district under the manorial sway of the Des Baux. Across the wide valley, to the westward, the rocks tower one above the other and form the hill of Costa Pera. 151 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ Time and the elements have worn its face into crevices and wrinkles and honeycombed it with innumerable caves. Midway up the cliff, there appears a deep hollow which at first might be mistaken for a well. It is, how- ever, the entrance to a series of large caverns, that locally go by the name of the Grotto of the Fairies. Here in the very heart of the rock, cut and worn into weird and fantastic shapes, are halls, passages, and declivities, twistings and windings, amongst which the imagination runs riot and calls up the visions of strange, elfish, un- earthly forms to people the uncanny surroundings. One can easily comprehend that this grotto became the foundation for grotesque legends, and how it might readily acquire a reputation for being the abode of witches who guarded jealously a she-goat made of solid gold, which was bound to bring fortune and prosperity of every conceivable kind to the mortal fortunate and daring enough to carry off the precious curiosity. There are no limits to the phantasms that the mind's eye can see in the deep, mysterious recesses, according to its mood or to the state of the owner's digestion. Les Baux has many curious legends and traditions, some of them based upon actual experiences, slightly exag- 153 mO o LES BAUX gerated, and others the effects of the unaided imagination. Of the latter class, a very beautiful one, that has formed the subject of many poems, records the death of the last of the noble house of Des Baux. When the Princess Alix was on her death-bed, the star which had guided her remote ancestor to Bethlehem's manger shone with its TO MOCMTnAJOUIt last flash of splendour through the window on the fading princess, and at the moment her soul passed away, the light, which for a thousand years had been the beacon of this illustrious family, went out for ever. On the heights above the Grotto of the Fairies are the remains of the ancient Roman Camp built by the army of Marius, and within its enclosure the upper casing walls of a cistern remain intact. The remains of another camp 153 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ of Marius, which still goes by his name, lie on the hills that overlook the town from the north. The impreg- nable nature of these positions on the hills around Les Baux thus early singled them out for occupation in times of war and danger, and, when the Phocean colonists of Aries were driven from their city by the Visigoths, led by Euric, in the fifth century, they found a refuge on these austere mountain slopes. Two relics of the Roman times, that have aroused much discussion, stand at the foot of the powdery cliffs of Baux. One of these is a huge block of greenish sandstone, about twenty feet high, which has fallen from the heights above. For years, the three life-size figures that are sculptured on this stone were regarded in the country as representing the three Saints, Marie, Martha, and their black servant Sara, whose bodies were alleged to lie in the church by the sea at Les Maries. About the middle of last century a tiny chapel, erected in front of the carved monolith, was dedicated to the three Marys, and called " Les Tremaie." On close examination, it is discovered that the figures are dressed in Roman garments, and although much mutilated and corroded by the weather, they are unmistakable Roman work of either the first century 154 o >c» -o- LES BAUX before or after the Christian Era. Below the figures is an inscription which is undecipherable, containing only the characters F . CALDUS AE . POSUIT . P The opinion of experts to-day is practically unanimous ' P0$TI.IO» in making the three figures represent Caius Marius, Julia Marii, his wife, and Martha, the Syrian prophetess who accompanied them, and was carried about in a litter throughout the campaign. If these deductions are correct, it fixes the date of the monument somewhere about 100 B.C., and gives further proof of the antiquity of Les Baux. 155 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ The other Roman monument lies at a httle distance, and although smaller is almost as interesting. It has attracted the attention of curious archaeological investi- gators, who have deduced a variety of origins for this stone ; some making it an ancient sacrificial altar, .others a simple monument to a man and his wife, probably Caius Marius and Julia. Les Baux has finished its brilliant career, and it seems fitting that its castle, churches, convents, and mansions should crumble and mingle with the dust of centuries, vanishing from man's sight along with the jousts and tourneys, " Courts of Love," gorgeous processions. Saints' day celebrations, picturesque midnight masses, and all the showy properties of its once romantic stage. 156 MONTMAJOUR 157 MONTMAJOUR MoNTMAjouR, or Montmajor as it is often spelt, stands upon a rocky elevation rising out of the extensive flat plain of La Crau. Its situation is unique, and was selected away back in the time when the lands surround- ing it were covered with water, and the only means of access was by boats or rafts. Although the antiquity of the site of the monastery built upon this erstwhile island is undoubted, the exact date of the Church and Chapel which constitute the older parts of the group of buildings there to-day, have been the subject of much debate and controversy. For years, nay for centuries, the famous Chapel of the " Holy Cross " was regarded as a building of the eighth century, the exact date of its construction being a.d. 779. The authority given was a Latin inscription now almost illegible, setting forth how the church was built and dedicated by Charlemagne to commemorate his great victory over the Saracens, and further recording that the 159 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ rebuilding by him of the Abbey of Montmajour was another token of gratitude. Another inscription (more legible) reads, " Many of the Franks who perished in the combat repose in the chapel of the Monastery. . . . Brothers, pray for them." The inscription refers, of course, to the Saracenic invasions of Provence a.d. 732 MOwr/iaAiPuR CMAPEL''rs™CI»0IX.-E.N-JErfU5ALEt>^, and 797, the earlier one repulsed by Charles Martel, and the latter by his grandson Charlemagne.. This in- scription has, however, to be ignored and regarded as the work of zealous monks at a much later date, anxious to add to the lustre of their monastery, and not too scrupulous in accepting traditions which gave this chapel a celebrity and antiquity wholly undeserved. It was early in the last century that the pretensions of 160 ^ ^ ^ MONTMAJOUR the inscription received their death-blow by the discovery of a hitherto unnoticed dedication on the pediment of the porch. The reliabiUty of this find seemed to be con- firmed by an ancient charter which attributed the erection of the building to the Abbe Rambert, and its consecration too, some three years later. This date obtained right up to the end of the last century, when expert opinion demonstrated, by external and internal evidences, that although standing on the site of a much older chapel, the present one was not erected until late in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century. This little chapel stands about three hundred yards away from the main buildings of the Abbey. The hard rock all around it is carved out into long shallow graves, which, with the exception of one, on the sloping ground near to the larger church of the Abbey, have been opened — that is to say, the heavy slabs of stone that formerly covered them have been removed and the bodies have disappeared. This pillage and desecration of the last resting-places of the brothers of the Monastery was the work of the revolutionary mobs from Aries, who, not content with rich plunder obtained in the Monastery itself, sought for any jewels buried with the dead. II i6i A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ The Chapel of the " Holy Cross" was the mortuary chapel to this cemetery in the rocks, and the sacredness of the spot made such wide appeals to the religious superstitions of the age that many distinguished knights and nobles sought the honour of resting their bones in the enduring tombs cut in the hallowed rocks of Mont- majour. The chapel is built in the shape of a cross with equal arms, the ends apsidal, buttressed, and half- vaulted. The square central tower is surmounted by a tiny cupola immediately above a small bell-lantern tower. The chapel has but three small windows, intended more to How the light that was always kept burning inside the chapel to shed its rays upon the graveyard outside than to light the interior. There are differences of opinion as to the original object of the chapel, but it seems more than probable that the lantern in the roof was designed to contain the beacon which it was the custom in the Middle Ages to keep burning at night in memory of the dead. There is no sculptured ornament in the interior of the chapel. The walls are severely plain, but they doubtless were at one time covered with Byzantine frescoes, in harmony with the general architectural style of this 162 «c» ye* •<2> MONTMAJOUR building which stands in isolated dignity upon the rock above the meres. The Abbey of Montmajour, now in a ruined state, was in the Middle Ages a " Benedictine " establishment of great importance and influence, with a reputation for sanctity that drew thousands of pilgrims annually from all parts of the world, across the shallow lagoons in boats and on rafts, the only means of reaching it, until well on 163 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE «C7> into the seventeenth century. The work of draining La Crau began in the sixteenth century, and gradually converted the swamp into a fertile plain ; but even as late as the eighteenth century the faithful had to make a part of their pilgrimage by boat. The Abbey retained its great reputation, and increased its power during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and the lofty modern buildings of the seventeenth century testify to the wealth and ambition of the Order at that time. It, however, suffered a gradual decline after the issue of an order of Louis XVL, confirmed by Rome, suppressing its powers. This was only about three years before the outbreak of the Revolution, which ended for ever the long monastic career of Montmajour. The approach to the Abbey, across rich low-lying meadows, dotted with feathery trees, is romantic and full of charm, and the ancient buildings stand out like a feudal castle, in strong relief against the sky or distant hills, according to the direction from which it is approached. A castle strongly fortified, for the machico- lated tower built in the fourteenth century rises from the most elevated portion of the rock to a height of nearly ninety feet. 164 ^ ^ ^ MONTMAJOUR The older parts of the chapel or church, like the build- ings at Les Baux, are for the most part cut out of the solid rock. The earliest part of the building is hewn in this manner, and in the lowest recesses of the subterranean church there is a small cell about four and a half feet by two feet, carved crudely out of the rocks, and containing a massive stone seat. A small square hole cut in the wall serves to let a stream of light into this tiny cell, which is known as the Confessional of St. Trophimus, the apostle of Provence. This cell is at the end of a series of narrow caves, one of which constitutes the sanctuary, the other contains two tombs excavated in the rock near its facq. The small arched windows in the masonry which forms one side of these underground chapels admit the bright light of day, and from them the occupants of the little sanctuary or vestibule could obtain a magnificent view of the distant countryside. As the vestibule was used by the brothers when waiting their turn at the Con- fessional, these windows would serve to relieve the monotony of many a tedious hour. The crypt of the Church of the Monastery is sepulchral and gloomy. Instead of a staircase a long passage descends with a gentle slope from the west end of the i65 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE church above, and leads to the underground chapel, the reason assigned to this method of entrance being that it allowed of elaborate processions passing from the ancient to the modern building with effective decorum. At the end of this long passage there is a spherically vaulted gallery with seven smaller chapels radiating from it. A massive altar of great antiquity stands in the middle of the centre chapel. Entirely free from all rich decora- tion, the whole place reeks of the dark ages, a fitting symbol of a period when art was struggUng towards a new expression. The crypt was probably built in the ninth or tenth century, and rebuilt by the Abbe Rambart towards the end of the eleventh. The church above was started by the same abbot, but was never finished according to the i66 ^ ^ ^ MONTMAJOUR original plan, for the west front is a hurried piece of con- struction evidently intended to serve until some future date when the Abbey banking account should be in a sufficiently flourishing state to give an imposing finish to the building. The tower of the Monastery, which gives it the ap- pearance of a fortress, was built in the middle of the fourteenth century, and possesses all the characteristics of the most advanced military architecture of the period. Its walls are built of smaller blocks of stone than is usual in similar buildings of that time. The great hall on the ground floor was used by the inhabitants of the Monastery as a storehouse, containing also a cistern into which the water was collected from the roofs, the overflow finding its way into exterior reservoirs. The most modern part of the Monastery is to-day in the hands of private owners, but in such a dilapidated condition that it is almost unsafe to venture among its tottering walls. These buildings, erected during a period of the institution's greatest prosperity, suffered more at the Revolution than the older parts of the Abbey. If the florid eighteenth-century buildings were all removed, they would be little loss to the place from an architectural 167 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ point of view, for their features strike a discordant note among the simple early Gothic surroundings. The cloisters of Montmajour are not very unlike those of St. Trophimus at Aries, and if the pillars and capitals of the arcade are less interesting in detail than those of the more famous cloisters, they have a more pleasing and less confusing effect in the mass. Round the waUs there are several very beautiful tombs with a variety of early styles of arched canopies — pointed, round, and inflected. Amongst these is the tomb of Geoffrey VI., a Count of Provence, who died in 1063. He was a generous patron and friend to the Monastery, and in the eleventh century conceded, along with other rights, the privilege of claiming the first sturgeon which should be caught in the river be- tween Mourrade de Bourques and the sea. This typically feudal privilege was, until the Revolution, enforced more by way of custom latterly, and a great procession of holiday-making fishermen, with bands playing and banners flying, accompanied by innumerable sightseers, came on rafts and in boats to the Abbey with their offering. Masses were celebrated for the soul of the good Count, a handsome pourboire given to the fishermen, the sturgeon cooked and placed upon the already groaning 168 169 o> >£> -c^ MONTMAJOUR board of the epicurean brothers, and everybody was contented and happy. The Benedictine Monastery of Montmajour enjoyed so many other privileges and bequests that it grew to be one ...r,'^, ■• ><:?« •o ARLES brought with them fire from their sacred hearths, a priestess and a statue of Diana from Ephesus, where they called on their way, in compliance to the commands of their oracles ; and settled down in the strange country, mixing and intermarrying freely with the native Gauls. The colony grew and flourished ; the quiet of their mercantile existence varied occasionally by wars and skirmishes with surrounding tribes, whose jealousy and cupidity was aroused by the rapidly growing prosperity of the new colony. But some centuries later the Massihans were compelled 12 ^77 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE 'O to call in the assistance of Rome to repel the increasing attacks made upon them and their colonies by the vast hordes of Teutons, Ambrones, and other Northern bar- barians. The celebrated campaign of Marius was suc- cessful, and gave the conquerors themselves a taste for colonising. The flourishing state of Aries and Marseilles no doubt incited the Empire builders to covet the favour- able positions occupied by the Greek settlers. Csesar, emulating and surpassing Marius in his cam- paigning zeal, conquered all Gaul, and under him the first Roman colonies took a firm hold upon the fertile regions in the valley of the Rhone. Aries became a maritime town, which rivalled Marseilles itself. The Celtic inhabitants, mixed strongly with the Phoenician element, were possessed of arts and crafts almost as highly developed as those of the conquering Romans. The city grew in importance until its population numbered 100,000. Traders from all parts of the world flocked to its markets, everything being brought to the city either by river-boats up and down the Rhone, or across the lagoons on rafts, or overland on the backs of mules and horses. The city could offer to its citizens every luxury known to the age. 178 «i7> O ARLES The great amphitheatre, built or commenced during the reign of Claudius Tiberius Nero, at the time when the power of Rome was at its zenith, could accommodate nearly 27,000 spectators to witness the wild beast and gladiatorial shows so popular in Rome at that period. It was constructed in the early days of amphitheatres, 179 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ and is perhaps one of the oldest extant, and gives, together with the Arena at Nimes, a more vivid impression of the Empire's strength and grandeur than any other Roman monument in France. Although on a much smaller scale than the mighty Coliseum at Rome (which was built at a much later date and replaced earlier buildings in that city, could accommodate 100,000 spectators, and was over 615 feet in length and 510 feet in width, as compared with the Arena at Aries, 450 feet long and 351 feet wide), it gives some notion of the important part the amphitheatre played in the life of the Roman capital. The amphitheatre at Aries, unlike that of Nimes, was, if the evidence of the height of the wall of the Podium enclosing the Arena is trustworthy, used for the great fights of lions, tigers, elephants, and other animals, as well as for combats between the gladiators — elaborate and extravagant spectacles that riveted the attention and ministered to the enjoyment of the Roman world for a period extending over seven hundred years. The im- mense arenas at Aries and Nimes are proof of the prosperity of these two colonies. Many of the Greek traditions of the Arlesiens were lost sight of and contemned by the i8o ARCHES OF THe^.REN'^. i8i A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ and is perhaps one of the oldest extant, and gives, together with the Arena at Nimes, a more vivid impression of the Empire's strength and grandeur than any other Roman monument in France. Although on a much smaller scale than the mighty Coliseum at Rome (which was built at a much later date and replaced earUer buildings in that city, could accommodate 100,000 spectators, and was over 615 feet in length and 510 feet in width, as compared with the Arena at Aries, 450 feet long and 351 feet wide), it gives some notion of the important part the amphitheatre played in the life of the Roman capital. The amphitheatre at Aries, unlike that of Nimes, was, if the evidence of the height of the wall of the Podium enclosing the Arena is trustworthy, used for the great fights of lions, tigers, elephants, and other animals, as well as for combats between the gladiators — elaborate and extravagant spectacles that riveted the attention and ministered to the enjoyment of the Roman world for a period extending over seven hundred years. The im- mense arenas at Aries and Nimes are proof of the prosperity of these two colonies. Many of the Greek traditions of the Arlesiens were lost sight of and contemned by the 180 -Arches of r»£. ^^z.ni\ i8i -£> o >o ARLES conquerors, but the refined and intellectual amusements of the Greeks made a slight appeal to the tastes of the warrior race, who overthrew them, and who built a theatre in Aries, in the first century, under the strong influence of the Greek element in the colony, an influence that had made itself felt also in the architecture of the Arena. Aries has preserved much of this Greek influence up to the present day ; for beauty cannot die — it influences succeeding ages and fashions all their work, and the sculptures fouiid in Aries are in this respect superior to those of Nimes and other Roman provincial towns. The Venus of Aries, which now rests in the Louvre, compared with that of Nimes, gives a forcible illustration of the different characteristics of Greco-Roman from the more purely Roman art ; a subtle difference to explain, but easily recognised when face to face with the actual work. The Venus, that should have been one of the most cherished glories of a city, whose womenfolk have inherited the beauty of their Phocean ancestors, is lost to it. Discovered in 1651 by two citizens in the courtyard of their house, built on the site of the theatre, it was sold to the town authorities for £60, and they, anxious to 183 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ■o curry favour with the " Grand Monarch," presented it to him in 1683. Louis had the statue restored and placed among his treasures in the Palace at Versailles, whence it was removed in the last century to where it now stands in the Louvre. The Amphitheatre at Aries is built upon slightly rising ground, and the practical builders took every advantage of the rocky foundations to save themselves any tm- necessary building, so that the lower galleries of the edifice only exist on a part of its circumference. The modem buildings that have sprung up and surrounded it prevent as good a view of the ensemble as is possible at Nimes. The interior galleries have stone Untels instead of the Roman arch as in those of the latter. The sim- plicity of the mouldings and carvings of the capitals is more akin to the Greek than to the later Roman style of architectural decoration, and although the building is not nearly so imposing as the Nimes Arena, or even that vast relic of the Empire at El-Djem in Tunisia, it has many features that are distinct from either. From the Rue Voltaire one looks up the broad flight of steps which lead to the north end of this mass of masonry and sees superimposed stages of arches ; the 184 1 Tr^S^^^^KSB ''^lufr'hlM^l 1 1 ][" ^^^^S^^^^^^^^fwVStlllttliiSmi/iUM^ wL^yX'^r^^^^SSfiS^ ^^IHH^^^^^n ^l^q^^f^^^^^ElM'^ l^^^g^^^HB^ ^BwfcftBK** ^-tkv/'/ ^^fc^^v^B Hk^8h^P ~ ^^^bI^^ r-^^r^^^^H J^rflK^^miB^'^ ^BBk ^^^^tR ■BHB^b||aBSi >' ^^^fi'^^^m^K-x- ^BS^k^^gr^^^^^^^^ - ^BSBiS^SL *'' -^^-s vVLW^^ JBSg^S^^ '- ^ /^^Mi^l2 QB^^^^^P: "^^"^ aj^MMmfe^ { W^^^SS^^- - ' -^^jBB)b|§| ^S^yV9^ISI^ ^* ' '^^^^^3^HL» '^tX^ ^|Mk i^^jB^aBiSt- ci^^j^^fliS^"^*' - f Viz ^t^^^ra^g nsOfl^dlm**''''^^'^'^ '^^> '^^^^m ^fflK^*^'" 1 1^^-^^ tt^UffliS^pL'^^T'* fc==^^^^^^M^^^j Ul J 5^^^^^^^^^^^Pv i my ^^^SKr^^a)iS!iS^^^ % :^^^^^^^"^^, i85 ^i> ^i> -e> ARLES lower series divided by simple square Doric pillars, the upper by Corinthian columns, only a few of which still possess their capitals. They are weather-worn and greatly damaged, and it is only by picking out more or less perfect bits, here and there, that evidence of its original beauty can be obtained. Internally, great galleries run round the inside walls, and lead out by flights of steps and passages on to three great ranges of seats. The original seating arrangements have under- gone much change, but the traces of the disposition of the Cavea can easily be made out with a little trouble. The high wall of the Podium is cased with smooth marble, upon the face of which there is a cornice that in former times supported an extra gallery, when the per- formance was not of a character too dangerous to the spectators. The upper galleries, reserved for the common people and slaves, have been roughly used, for during the eighth century, when the city was threatened by an invasion of the Saracens, a large number of the inhabi- tants took up their abode within the great ellipse ; the arches were built up, and four towers erected at the north and south, east and west, turning the place into a vast fortress. Streets were formed in all directions by 187 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE the two hundred buildings that grew up, and a market- place and church were erected. Right on, until about a hundred years ago, when it was cleared by the Mayor and municipality, this town re- mained a squalid blot upon the city. Two of the four towers still remain. After the removal of the " town " from the heart of the arena, it was utilised again for the amusements of the people. The first step towards re-establishing spectacles was the annual ceremony of brand- ing the bulls, which was half in the nature of a " bull- fight " ; and later in the last century bullfights, very much after the fashion of those of Portugal, were staged both here and at Nimes — the bull being played with in a harmless way without being killed or tortured as in Spain. But this has not proved sufficiently exciting for the Southern blood, and to-day tauromachy in its most i88 ^ ^ yC' ARLES aggravated forms obtains in the arenas of Provence : horses and bulls pour out the red heart-blood upon the sanded arena, as did the gladiators, martyrs, and savage beasts of old ; and if the Greeks have transmitted their beauty to the womenfolk of Aries, the Romans have been no less successful in implanting in their ancient colony some of their characteristic love of what, to put it mildly, might be called exciting pastimes. The world of to-day looks back with horror on the Roman holidays, which strangely enough grew out of a religious celebration in honour of the dead. The despised barbarians of the old world burnt victims on the funeral pyre ; the proud Romans, exulting in their superiority over the untutored savages, outdid them in barbarity. The rapid development of the show of dying agony went on from the earliest times, when slaves were first immolated upon the tombs of the illustrious dead, imtil the time when the Gothic King Theodoric took Aries — one long record of the wanton pouring out of human blood. From an offering to appease the gods, it grew to be a slaughter for the gratification of an insatiable lust for bloodshed in the body politic. The first gladiatorial fighters appear upon the scene 189 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ about two hundred years before the Christian era, and the strange funeral custom became so fashionable that it was a common thing for a son to celebrate his father's funeral with a fight in which hundreds of forced combatants took part and fought to the death, Julius Caesar gave such encouragement to the " sport " that peaceful citizens and political opponents grew alarmed at the rapid growth of the gladiatorial fraternity, who were a standing menace to their city. But, in spite of the endeavours of the more enlightened emperors,' the passion for the arena increased, as hundreds of records show. Slaves, prisoners of war, fair-haired Saxons and tattooed Britons, swarthy Moors and Oriental Turks, criminals and Christians, were ex- hibited and put to death by one another in front of thousands of spectators, who never tired of these holo- causts of blood. To-day in Spain, and in her now lost colonies, similar appetite exists for the blood of bulls and horses, and all attempts to put down these gory spectacles meet with violent opposition. The great bullrings in Spain and Mexico still preserve something of the atmosphere, attentuated perhaps, that pervaded the arenas of old, and, mild as the exhibitions are by comparison with the 190 NIN/iej- 191 <^ <^ y^ ARLES ancient pastimes, they have enough horror to sicken the strong nerves of Northern people. One cannot wander about the great corridors, or up and down the giant stairways of seats of the Arenas at Aries and Nimes, without being haunted by the ghosts of the distant past. Here, on the front seats once reserved for magistrates, senators, and patricians, one can picture the richly-robed crowds who patronised the ring. There sat the guilds and corporations whose names were in- scribed upon the places reserved for them, as can still be seen upon the Arena at Nimes. Higher up were the plebeians, the common people, the hundred and one unclassed folk who followed lowly occupations ; highest of all, standing outlined against the sky, the dense crowd of slaves, with straining eyes, stretched necks, and bated breath, gazed down upon the combatants, who looked like specks in the distant oval. A more pleasant train of thought is set in motion by the ruined Theatre which lies quite near. Dating from about the same time, it betrays even more of the Grecian influence than does the Arena. It is only, however, by a close attention to the fragments that lie in a small railed enclosure at the foot of the Tower of St. Roland, that one 13 193 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE <^ can form any just estimate of the beauty which this example of Greek architecture possessed. The theatre is in ruins, and the two columns of African and Carrara marble which still stand amidst the beautiful fragments of bruised masonry have an interest which, in the light of historical knowledge, is of pathetic loveliness. The ruins are enclosed by houses on three sides, the fourth being -"^^H Tr»t CVOMAM *rMKATffC bounded by the gardens of the town. The authorities have men at work, keeping the relic from suffering more damage by the continual wearing of the elements, and the Cavea, or auditorium, is being renovated, so that, when the restorations in hand are completed, this part of the con- struction will regain somewhat of its former appearance. The theatre at Aries is essentially different from that at Orange : the latter being entirely Roman in style 194 'O ^o- ^c» ARLES and construction, and adapted for the performances which, under the Romans, degenerated into such de- moralising obscenities. So degrading did the spectacles become even in Greek Aries that, during a wave of religious enthusiasm, which swept over the town in the first Christian centuries, a band of the townspeople nearly demolished the theatre, breaking up the statues, altars, columns, and leaving it unfit for further performances. The theatres of the Greeks, which played an important part in the life of the people, had developed from simple wooden constructions, liable to damage by fire, into places highly embellished with sculpture and marble columns, carefully studied so as to render the acoustic properties nearly perfect. The arrangement universally adopted throughout the Ionian Isles and Asia Minor is well exemplified in the Aries theatre. The large orchestra, floored with beautiful marble, parts of which still remain, was not intended for the audience. This huge semi- circle, which corresponds to the stalls and pit of the modern theatre, was reserved entirely for the musicians and chorus, two parallel flights of steps leading up from it to the narrow stage, making communication easy between the two divisions of the stage. 195 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE o This theatre differs from the native Greek theatre in regard to the site chosen. It was the invariable custom to select a sloping hillside upon which the Cavea could be easily constructed, but here, at Aries, the Roman practice has been adopted with a Greek theatre, and the great semicircular seats of the auditorium are built up on an arcade which rises up from the level ground. At Orange, oddly enough, the position is reversed, and a purely Roman theatre is built upon a site such as the Greeks would have considered perfect. Round the out- side of the Cavea of the theatre at Aries there was a beautifully chiselled frieze, fragments of which are collected together on the site. It is doubtful if the theatre had a colonnade behind the top row of seats, as was customary in the native Greek theatre, but the evidences of the large orchestra, the narrow stage, the beautiful proscenium, the refined designs of the mouldings and carvings, are sufficient to stamp this building as Greek. The persistence of Greek traditions throughout cen- turies, at Aries, is curious, but shows how strong the element must have been in the city. Its position upon the rocky eminence, surrounded by the miasmatic lagoons, tended, doubtless, to preserve its insularity and the 196 .<:?• >£?« -o ARLES provincialism which it still enjoys. Even the " tour de Roland," which was erected on the southern side of the theatre during the Middle Ages, has not escaped the classic influence, for the en- gaged flat columns on its face have a restraint which would seem to have been engendered by the graceful beauty of its surroundings. In the early seventeenth- century Church of St. Anne, which stands at the north- west corner of the Place de la R^publique, or Place Royale as it is now called, there are gathered together many beautiful fragments of the sculptured statues, busts, heads, and tombs that have been found in and around the town. The tombs, both Pagan and early Christian, are of exceptional historic interest, not only to the 197 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE o. townsfolk, but to the world at large, for by their curious inscriptions much may be gathered of the occupations followed, and the lives led, by the early inhabitants of the town. To go through them all would require a work devoted to the subject alone, but they are varied enough to show that Aries enjoyed a wide celebrity as a burial- ground. The Pagan and Christian tombs found in the Alyscamps (Elysian Fields) have been an inexhaustible mine of wealth, not only to collectors and museums, but to the inhabitants of the town and surrounding country. The massive monolithic stone coffins have been turned to use, and in the district one finds them converted into water- troughs, benches, washtubs, and even pig-troughs. The dust of the dead of twenty centuries amounts to very little, and the natives evidently thought it a work of supererogation to carve, with much labour, the limestone rocks into articles of daily use when they had such quantities lying ready to their hands. The Church of St. Anne forms a very fitting museum for many of the interesting tombs that have been rescued from the hands of ruthless utilitarians, and there they can be studied in peaceful and solemn surroundings. Many 198 "Cx ARLES typify the gentle disposition of the occupant or that she was of the Christian faith. There is often great difficulty in distinguishing between the Pagan and Christian tombs, owing to the similarity of the symbols used ; but in some cases the newer faith expresses hopes that are lacking in the Pagan inscriptions, as a comparison of these two free translations clearly shows : " Oh grief ! how many tears have been shed upon this tomb Of Julia Lucina, who in life was very dear to her mother : Cut off in the flower of youth, she lies buried beneath this stone. Would that she could return 1 Were it only to know how great is my sorrow. She lived twenty years ten months and thirteen days. Julia Parthenope, her unhappy mother, raised this monument to her.'' And this on the tomb of Concordius, a Christian priest of the fourth century : " Irreproachable and pious, pure in hfe and body, Concordius, here entombed, lived for eternity. In his youth he occupied the office of a deacon. He was afterwards chosen as a priest by the Divine Law. He had scarcely completed his fiftieth year when He was transported prematurely into the starry hall of the Almighty, Where his loving mother and brother aspire to find him." The inscriptions on most of the tombs evince that the departed were held in tender regard by their bereft 201 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE -o relatives and friends. Some of them are quite touching human documents, manifesting the deep attachment that parents had for their children. Many elaborately carved tombs, with short stumpy figures, lacking entirely any aesthetic beauty, but full of ingenuity to express sym- bolically the Christian story and traditions, have been found ; and one of the latest additions to the Museum is an early Pagan tomb of great excellence of workmanship, evidently belonging to the first century of the Christian era. The figures carved round it have an entirely dif- ferent character from those on the Christian tombs of a later date. This was found in La Camargue when the railway to Les Maries was in course of construction. The Alyscamps, the vast cemetery, where most of these tombs were found, lies to the south of the town on the farther side of the broad " Avenue Victor Hugo." The antiquity of this burial-ground is indisputable. When it was consecrated for Christian burial by St. Trophimus may well be a matter for dispute, for it is a little uncertain who St. Trophimus really was. He is the apostle of Aries, and legend makes him one of the companions of St. Paul who accompanied him on his travels; but this claim was not put forward until the 202 o •^^ ARLES twelfth century, and after the time when the saint's bones were transferred from the Alyscamps to the Church of St. Etienne, now famous as the Church of St. Trophimus. Whoever the St. Trophimus may have been, there is very little doubt that the Church of St. Honorat was built by TOMUS IN THE ARUf-5 lo- st. Virgil, who probably utilised the site of an ancient Pagan or early Christian temple. The Alyscamps was well supplied with churches and chapels, at one time possessing as many as nineteen. Even the early Church of St. Honorat, when it was rebuilt, had chapels added to it by the pious, and still more by the aristocratic families of the seventeenth century. The 203 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ nave of the church is in ruins, although other parts are in tolerable repair. The pillars, which support the roof and separate the nave from the aisles, are enormous columns about thirty feet in circumference. The addi- tions of later times have made the interior plan of the church rather confusing, and the ruinous state of the exterior gives one the impression that a bombardment or an earthquake shock have rendered some assistance in tumbling walls and ceilings to the ground. All through the Middle Ages the Alyscamps was in high favour as a burial-ground, and bodies from distant parts were brought to it for interment, but its popularity declined somewhat after the removal of the remains of St. Trophimus. At intervals there seemed to be a slight revival, for we find that chapels were added to the original collection of buildings as late as the seventeenth century, although before this period the collector had been busy among the tombs, and Charles IX. (the same monarch who consented to the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day) gave away many of the more beautiful of the sarcophagi to his friends and intimates. The vast field of tombs rapidly fell a prey to the vandal hands of collectors, and one can readily understand that 204 ROMAN THEATRE, ARLES. ^ * ^(tr^tS savages. They knew and bartered with the Greek colonists at Aries and Marseilles, and Celtic coins and bronzes discovered in the neighbourhood of NJmes give abundant evidence of strong Hellenic influences. The wondrous spring which gave rise to the ancient city still gushes out in an inexhaustible volume of water, which finds its outlet through canals into the Vistre. The Baths, built by Agrippa in the first century at the foot of the hill, were supplied by the sacred well, and their 220 ^> o NIMES extent and elegance show how important and wealthy the colony had become. Stone terraces, courts, and promenades, ornamented with urns and statues, are now built upon the site, and the water of the spring is allowed COFFEE . to overflow into the apartments and chambers of the ancient Baths. The gardens are very beautiful, the brilliant white of the stone balustrade, terraces, and steps, contrasting with and adding to the beauty of the thickly wooded hill that rises at the back. After the gardens at 221 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE NIMES and NEM. to the right, separated by the palm-tree. It is thought that the boar's leg and foot on these coins, or medals, may be some special compliment to the Gauls, to whom the boar was sacred. The inscription on the coin is common enough, and the heads of Augustus and Agrippa are of course meant for the heads of Octavius Augustus, the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, Emperor in 27 B.C., and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the great general who was the life-long friend and son-in-law of Augustus. He was a great benefactor to Nimes, and built the gigantic Pont du Gard which brought the water into the town, the spring of Nemausus being too sacred to use for drinking and domestic purposes. It is in compliment to Agrippa that the crocodile tied to the palm-tree is 223 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE o stamped on the reverse of these coins, symbolic of the subjugation of the Egyptian power when Antony was defeated at Actium. This device of the palm-tree and crocodile has been adopted as the arms of the town. Agrippa was a warrior and organiser of the first order, and the honours that his friend the Emperor showered upon him were no more than he deserved, for Rome owes to him its Pantheon, and Nimes its Pont du Gard. The brilliance of Nimes at the beginning of the Christian era was unrivalled in the whole of Gaul, During this epoch, buildings of the most splendid character sprang up on all sides, until, in the time of Antoninus Pius (whose father was a Roman Consul in Nemausus), the great Arena was erected. The Maison Carr6e, which has for centuries excited the admiration of the civilised world, is the finest classic temple extant. Built during the first years of the Christian era, it was dedicated to the two sons of Agrippa, Caius and Lucius, who were adopted by their grandfather, the Emperor Augustus, at their father's death. The youths both died young, and without accomplishing anything worthy of record, but as long as the Maison Carree stands their names will go down to posterity. 224 'C^ •o >£> NIMES The small temple has been portrayed on canvas and paper thousands of times ; familiarity with its graceful form can never exhaust its charms ; measurements and analysis do not assist in making its beauty more apparent. Kings and Emperors have coveted it, and the miracle is that it has escaped destruction or removal. Napoleon N|f»lES was contemplating this latter when more pressing affairs demanded his attention, and Louis XIV., at the sug- gestion of the architect Colbert, would have transported it to Versailles, but the task was found to be impossible. Each succeeding age endeavours to pay its tribute to this flower of Greco-Roman art, but none has ever succeeded in describing the indescribable. Arthur Young, who visited Nimes in the course of his travels through France during the Revolution, says : 15 225 r w w w \ A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE o " I visited the Maison Carrie yesterday evening, this morning, and three times during the course of the day. It is without comparison the most trifling, the most agreeable building I have ever seen. Without having an imposing grandeur, or displaying any extraordinary magnificence that might create surprise, it rivets the attention. In its proportions there is a magic harmony that charms the eye. It would be impossible to single out any special part for excellence of beauty, for it is altogether perfect in symmetry and grace." The temple stands in a square which was the Forum in Roman days ; the remains of the foundations indicate the position which the contemporary buildings occupied. To-day the square is surrounded with modern buildings, but sufficient space is left between them and the temple to permit of its being viewed from all sides. The modern theatre that stands on the left is classic in style, with Ionic pillars supporting the entablatures of its porch, but a glance at it is sufficient to demonstrate to what depths a modern imitation of a classic style can sink. The temple, although in good preservation, has in its time seen many vicissitudes. Towards the end of the 226 ■^> o NIMES Middle Ages it was installed as a town hall or council house, and its interior fitted to accommodate its new occupiers ; but evidently it was not quite suitable, for, in the sixteenth century, the town authorities parted with it to a private person, in exchange for a piece of land upon which they could erect a building more adapted to their 227 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ requirements. The new proprietor had little respect for the beauty of the ancient temple, and had no compunction in altering it to suit his prosaic needs. It was about this period that the Duchess d'Uzes tried to purchase the building to serve her and her descendants as a place of sepulture. This attempt to turn it into a family vault, however, failed ; but the noble lord was more successful who managed to purchase and convert the temple into a stable, although this vandalism was loudly protested against by the learned and artistic inhabitants of the city. It changed hands again and passed into possession of the Augustine friars, who transformed it into a church or chapel, their occupation being conditional on their offering up on fete day massses and prayers for their King and Country. After the Revolution, the Govern- ment of the restoration stepped in and rescued beauty's temple from further humiliations and abuse, and now a collection of the rare and precious relics of the most classic town in France is housed in its choicest building. The other famous relic of Nemausus, the Arena, has been mentioned previously in connection with that of Aries. It is in much better preservation than the latter and more imposing, as it stands where an uninterrupted 228 •o o ■o NIMES view of its vast proportions can be obtained. Smaller in actual measurement than the arena at Aries, it im- presses one as being much larger. It has had a similar history, however, for in the fifth century the Visigoths who possessed the town turned it into a fortress, and the Saracens, who a.d. 719 had made themselves masters T(+*"AR1:na- MIMES of Septimania or Languedoc, used it as a stronghold until they were driven out by the powerful Charles Martel. Later in its history the Arena was occupied by over two thousand Nimansians, who built within the great ellipse a town of narrow streets and houses, the endless galleries and arcades offering a series of almost ready- made dweUings. They had a church too, the remains of which are being carefully preserved. The exterior of this 229 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ Arena is pure Roman, as befits a building built for the Roman national sport. The two arcades of bold, deep-sunk arches are gloomily mysterious even when the brilliant sunlight illumines all around. At night the gloom and mystery increases, and the footfall of the solitary passer-by awakens echoes through the endless vaults that seem to reach into the beginning and end of time. And yet when the moon creeps up and throws her pale rays over the giant seats that rise in circles like the rings on a disturbed pool, the Arena has a beauty all its own — unpaintable, unspeakable. The gladiatorial fights would seem to have been the most prevalent kind of sport that was witnessed in the Arena, for it has been suggested over and over again that the low wall of the podium would render fights between wild or ferocious animals unsafe to the most important of the spectators. On one of the stones in the podium there is, amongst others, one inscription which has an interest in showing that the important guilds of Nimes had places perpetually reserved for them in the distinguished foremost position of the podium. This in- scription reads N. RHOD . ET . ARAR, XL . DDN . which has been deciphered " Nautse of the Rhone and of 230 •^> -£> •<^ NIMES the Saone, 40 places by decree of the Decuriones of Nemausus." The watermen were evidently a guild of considerable social im- portance to have such honourable positions as- signed to them, unless they were a similar body to the guilds of our own capital, whose names have little con- nection with the occupa- tions of their members. The general ar- rangements of the Arena are similar to those at Aries, but the whole building is in a much better state of preservation. During the last few years buU- VE.INUS OF fighting, both in the Portuguese and Spanish fashions, has taken place regularly in the Arena. In fact, even in the smaller villages or towns of Provence, the sport is so 231 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ very popular that temporary makeshift buildings are often erected, but at Nimes and Aries the splendid arenas enable the displays to be witnessed by more than the present populations of these towns. No use is, however, made of the great stone corbels that project in two rows round the top of the exterior walls, and which in Roman times supported great poles from which enormous sheets of sailcloth were stretched to protect the spectators from the burning sun. The gladiators were a large fraternity at Nimes, and many of the inscriptions preserved in the Musee Lapidaire refer directly or indirectly to them. The skill of the different classes of fighters is recorded along with their domestic virtues — testimony which adds pathos to their tragic fate. Many of them were good fathers and faithful husbands, who left anxious hearts behind them when they entered the arena, and aching voids when they returned no more. The Roman courage of the professional gladiators was not less terrible than the Roman cruelty of their employers, and loving hearts were lacerated every time a human body was butchered to make a Roman holiday. In the same little museum at Nimes where these in- 232 A .(/' OF D|l»kNA. . NIME-S. 233 ^ so ^ NIMES scriptions now repose there are many fragments of the most exquisite carvings, enriched mouldings, and delicate capitals, all of them speaking eloquently of vanished buildings that adorned the ancient Nemausus. Of the two other monuments of the ancient city, mere wrecks of their former selves, which have claimed the attention of architects, artists, and archaeologists, one, the Temple of Diana, stands in the beautiful garden of the fountain on the site of a much older temple dedicated to the nymphs of the waters by the earliest Roman colonists, probably by Augustus himself. The ruined temple stand- ing to-day was very likely erected about two centuries later, and the object of its presence on the spot has caused, as is usual with these early buildings, considerable differ- ence of opinion ; but it undoubtedly had something to do with the cult of the goddess of the fountain, notwith- standing the presence in it of niches reserved for the statues of other divinities. It is a solid structure containing a large hall with a barrel- vaulted roof in a bad state of repair. The worship of the goddess died out in the fourth century, and the deserted buildings falling, in the dark ages, into the hands of the Benedictines, it was given over to the female 235 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE -£> devotees of the new religion. These nuns continued in possession for some six hundred years, a long period during which little is known of it, except the facts stated. HOU1» OROE.R5 There is some kind of a record that a fire took place in it about the end of the nuns' tenancy, and there seems to be a probability that it had at that time been turned into a hay store. Its later history is a long record of disaster, 236 •o •o NIMES for it was used as a fortress, and war had its share in bringing about the ruin. But whatever troubles it may have come through, it has an honoured old age, and all the care and protection which the appreciative twentieth century can suggest is bestowed upon it. The other early monument, dating from before the first GATE OP AUffOSrUS.^__ M|M6.'=i century, is the Porte d'Auguste, which was built, i6 B.C., in the ramparts of the town. It was for defensive pur- poses, and but little remains of the original structure save two large arches and two smaller ones, which have still smaller niches above. In the stormy reign of Charles VI. by his orders a great fortress was erected over this gateway, and for nearly four hundred years this, perhaps the 237 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ earliest piece of Roman architecture in Nimes, was buried out of sight and out of ken. The other Roman gates of Nimes have nearly vanished, portions only remaining of another fortified gateway that stood and guarded the southern entrance to the town. On the summit of the hill from which the spring of Nemausus issues, and which is 350 feet above the sea- level, there stands an octagonal ruined tower, that rises to a height of about 90 feet. There is a theory that the tower stands on the site of a more ancient one, built by a Phocean-Celtic population to guard their city. The tower was originally some thirty feet higher than it is to-day. The lower story of the imposing mass was built round a rising mound of earth which filled up the interior and made a solid stony foundation for the superstructure. It is known as the " Tour Magne," and was built, probably, about the same time as the Porte d'Auguste, and formed a part of the system of the town's fortifications, for it commands such an extensive view of the country round that there can be little doubt that it was a watch-tower from which the military of the time could observe the movements of any threatening danger to their town. The " Tour Magne " must have many 238 «c» -^T- NIMES memories ; if it could only speak, its autobiography would be full of magic charm. It could tell of fierce strife and a crowd of stirring incidents that took place between Roman and barbaric Celt, Visigoths, Franks, and Bur- TOUR. MAvGNE^' gundians, and of the smaller but fierce struggles of which no history exists. But one story has been put on record, the only legend current about the old fortress, and strangely uncon- nected with warlike undertakings. In the sixteenth century a farmer named Trucat heard of a prognostica- tion made by the noted astrologer Nostradamus to the 239 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ■o effect that a husbandman would make a fortune by dis- covering a golden cock. Golden animals and birds seem to have run riot through the imaginations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The credulous Trucat fondly believed that he was the fortunate man indicated by the FreiE.z£ OF ia"-CENT.uRy o™ the CATH EC5RAL . AT, MrjIES prophecy, and that the treasure he was to discover lay buried in the rocky earth, which filled the lower storeys of the famous " Tour Magne." He set about gaining permission to explore the earth inside the tower. After some trouble he managed to get the consent of the King, Henry IV., to excavate, the condition imposed being that it should all be done at his 240 ^Sa<-S. ^..v^--^^ WOMAN OF ARLES. p. 240] <^ >£> ^ NIMES own expense, and the King further displayed his char- teristic cautiousness by stipulating that two-thirds of any treasure-trove should go into the imperial exchequer. The story of the " Golden Cock " ends tamely enough, for neither the precious bird nor any valuables were found by the superstitious farmer, whose purse was made much lighter instead of heavier by his expensive search. Nimes, unlike Aries (the Gallic Rome), is still a pros- perous and growing city, a popular place of residence and full of modern life. Its streets, shops, and open spaces, adorned with modern statues, many of great merit, are highly appreciated by all classes of its inhabitants, who delight in the beauty of their town. The older families from the smaller towns around recognise the attractions of the largest city in the lower valley of the Rhone, and seek it as a place of residence and retirement. The modern churches are perhaps beautiful to a modern taste ; St. Baudile with its twin needle-pointed spires, St. Perpetue with its single spire tapering like a pyramid, or St. Paul with its Roman-Byzantine front, have a completeness that the Cathedral of St. Castor lacks, but they have not its old associations. St. Castor is sur- rounded by houses, and the only view that can be ob- i6 241 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ tained of it is from the tiny square into which its west door faces — an unforgettable little picture. High up just under the pediment there is, carved in deep relief, a series of figures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They represent scenes from the Old Testa- ment, and have the rare merit of telling their story with a simple directness that cannot fail to be recognised by the meanest intelligence. It is thought that the Cathedral stands on the spot that was formerly graced by a Roman temple, and it is a likely enough supposition, for the early Christians in the southern Gallic towns generally selected the sites of Pagan temples for erecting places of worship. The interior of the church, often restored and rebuilt at later periods, to-day presents a romanesque appear- ance, and has a very solemn and mournful aspect when dressed for a funeral. Curtains of sombre velvet encase the porch, and the little tapers carried by the mourners throw a weird light on the procession of priests and choir boys as they pass up the great central nave. Although the Church is disestablished and disendowed all through France, the ministrations of the clergy are still sought when the end comes, and these last rites for the dead are of daily occurrence in the South. 242 THE CATHEDRAL' 243 <> ^ o NIMES The revolutionary South is very conservative in many of its customs. The women still gather round the weUs to fill their pitchers, and one can without difficulty eliminate the twentieth century and imagine the daily scene and life in Roman Gaul. The warm climate and small stuffy rooms of many of the older buildings induce a preference for the open air, and one can often see the domestic drudges turning the drums of the coffee- roasters by the side of the Maison Carree or sawing logs for firewood in the old way, holding the saw between the knees and with the hands passing the timber backwards and forwards over its jagged edge. From the railway station at NJmes the broad Boulevard Feuchiers, lined with four rows of plane-trees, leads to a large open space, the Esplanade. Round this public circus there is an oval balustrade, the designer of which seems, perhaps unconsciously, to have been influenced by the great Arena which stands quite near. Even the stone seats preserve the Roman traditions in their heavy con- struction. The most important cafe in the town stands in the Esplanade, and in winter the pavement outside is coveired with a thick mat upon which the chairs and table stand. A great coke stove stands in the middle, and 245 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE customers sit round the tables and fire listening to the music until the small hours of the morning. Paris herself can offer no better fare. The " Pont du Gard," which was one of Agrippa's greatest engineering feats, remains the most colossal Roman monument in France. Remoulins, the little village that lies nearest to the bridge, is easily reached by train either from Nimes or Avignon, and the road along the banks of the Gard is full of rural charm, for it passes vineyards, homesteads, ploughed fields, and green pastures. Great steep hills rising up on either side of the river enclose the vaUey, and when one suddenly catches sight of the towering masonry of the aqueduct that spans the river the sensations aroused are bewildering. Three great tiers of arches stretch across the river, and frame in the whole horizon. The wonderful warm 246 o OrSAMQ^'; and rooms, and erected a great tower over the attic, making it the watch-tower or donjon of a fortress that has vanished centuries ago. Whether these building operations of Raymond de Baux did more to preserve the arch than to damage it cannot 255 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ be known, but to-day it retains many of its original features in remarkably good condition. The great block of masonry has three arches, the centre one larger than the other two. On each of its facades there are four fluted Corinthian columns which support a cornice and pediment of great delicacy. The sculptures that remain well defined upon the west front are symbols of battles by land and sea ; they tell of captives taken and victories won. Carved in rich profusion are spears and javelins, arms and armour, helmets, breastplates and shields, prows of war galleys, rigging, ropes and anchors, gladiators and slaves, male and female captives. The different theories as to the origin of this arch have each been supported by apparently good evidence. Suetonius, the Roman historian of the first century, is quoted as the authority that Domitius Ahenobarbus celebrated a triumph in Gaul, which gave his name to the road he traversed. The Domitian way, the route Domitius is supposed to have followed, was via Orange, Carpentras, and Cavaillon, and at each of these places he is reported to have erected the triumphal arches, and that would make all three of these date from the second century before Christ, .256 •o o - ORANGE The next theory, which for a long time has had its supporters, makes Marius the hero whose triumph it celebrates ; and they point to the name of Marius carved oi_o Mousey AT or£/i,NG£, on one of the shields of the monument in support of their contention. Julius Csesar has been suggested as the possible builder, and so has Octavius ; but the general 17 257 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ opinion held to-day is that it was erected during the reign of Tiberius to commemorate his overthrow of Julius Sacrovir, who tried to incite the Gauls to rebel against Rome A.D. 21. This theory has been supported by the discovery of the marks of nails which held in position the bronze letters of an inscription removed by Ra37mond de Baux when he transformed the arch into a fortress in the thirteenth century. These marks have been supposed to correspond with the first letters of the name of Tiberius ; but whatever the victory may have been that the trium- phal arch commemorates, its presence in Orange is one of many proofs of the importance of the ancient city of Arausio. The ramparts and towers that surrounded the Roman town have all disappeared. Visigoth and Teuton broke down the power of the Empire, demolishing its works on every hand. The Saracens in turn possessed the town, and fierce battles raged around it before Charlemagne drove them out. In the Middle Ages it was subjected to the continued strife and warfare of contending feudal factions, but the Arch and the Theatre remain to speak of its former greatness. At the opposite side of the town from where the Lyons 258 •c* <^ ORANGE road enters it, a great hill rises from the plain, and on its crest the castle of the Princes of Orange stood in former days. At the foot of the hill, on its townward side, ^ ^ 'm\ \ '■^^^4''^' mu<«c, stands a huge wall, some 340 feet long, 120 feet high, and 13 feet in thickness. One can only stand awestruck in front of this gigantic structure that overshadows and dwarfs the town. No wonder that Louis XIV. called it 259 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ the finest wall in all his wide kingdom. It awakens emotions akin to those one feels on beholding " The Pyramids " of Egypt, or its nearer neighbour the " Pont du Gard." This wall forms the back of the proscenium of the Roman theatre, and is the most unique specimen in existence. The great fagade, with its projecting corbels which supported tall masts, its rows of blind and open arches, even though damaged, much worn, and shorn of its carvings, has a noble grandeur due mainly to its size. Originally there was a forecourt, bounded at either end by two projecting structures, which gave a greater architectural beauty to the pile. The Theatre, although so purely Roman, is built at the foot of the hill which is used for the cavea, a practice that was adopted invari- ably by the Greeks and seldom by the Romans. Inside, the stage must have occupied more and the orchestra less space than in the Greek theatre. The great background formed by the back of the stage was probably embellished with niches containing statues and framed with costly marble columns. Over the central or royal door which opened on to the stage, it is supposed that a colossal statue of an Emperor was placed, and the whole 260 ■o ORANGE of the stage was roofed over with a richly panelled ceiling. In the large wings on either side of the stage were the dressing- and green-rooms for the actors, as well as waiting- and refreshment-rooms for the higher social grades of the pubhc. The seats for the spectators are cut out of the THEATr^e 'i-^T ^ri^UlEly hill, and form an ascending series of horseshoe-shaped steps which could accommodate about seven thousand spectators. In the seventeenth century the Princes of Orange, who dwelt in a stronghold upon the hill overlooking the theatre, attached it to their castle, converting it into a fortress. Much of its ornamentation disappeared at this period, 261 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ and more was destroyed at a later date when the town was taken by Louis XIV., who ordered the demoUtion of the castle and fortress. A squalid town of houses and stables occupied the interior of the Theatre after this ; but happily they were all cleared out at the beginning of the last century, and to-day the monument is jealously guarded by a Government department. From the hilltop behind the castle one looks over a country as rich as any in Provence. The Rhone glides through meadows, orchards, vineyards, and great mulberry plantations, past little red-tiled farmhouses, and long white roads lined by tall poplars and thickset hedges. Orange* is the gateway to Roman Gaul, and its two monuments are a magnificent introduction to the neigh- bouring towns of Aries and Nimes. There are many curious streets and houses in the town, and the Hotel de Ville, which stands in the principal square, is a pleasing bit of seventeenth-century architecture. Down one of the narrow streets near the great wall of the Theatre there stands a little church surmounted by an old crum- bling tower. The interior of this ancient little building is so striking in contrast to the usual magnificence displayed in the churches of Provence, that one is not surprised to 262 '\'*^ I fl^lTy'"!' Ht f«£?. .«> ORANGE discover that in it the Protestants of Orange worshipped. The plain whitewashed walls are reminiscent of the churches of Holland — perhaps the only association dis- coverable in the town with the Stadholders, who were also Princes of Orange. Many of the older streets have quaint arcades with bold round arches that naturally suggest a Roman origin. Carpentras lies to the east of Orange and Avignon, about fifteen miles from either place. In the old days the dusty mud-stained diligences plied from Avignon to Carpentras, but to-day the cross-country motor-bus has found in Provence a hearty welcome and plenty of passengers, and the ancient relationship between the two towns is more closely knit together. Carpentras is no longer the important town it was before the Revolution. From being a Roman town of great consequence, " Car- pent orate," it grew during the Middle Ages to become the capital of the Papal province, the " Comtat Venaissin." When Pope Clement V., by the orders of Philip the Fair, removed his Papal See from Rome, his time was divided between Carpentras and Avignon, and it was in the former town that he breathed his last. 265 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ In 1305, when Clement took up his temporary abode in Carpentras, it was strongly fortified with machicolated battlements, towers and gateways, and all the other accessories of a mediaeval town. Churches had been established for ages, the oldest one, St. Siffrein, dating from the sixth century. The present Cathedral of that name is the fifth building that has been erected upon the same site : the first having been built in the sixth century, the second in the eighth or ninth, the third in the tenth, and the fourth at the end of the thirteenth century. Nothing remains of the two earliest, although some parts of the third building were incorporated in the fourth. The present church was built by the anti-pope Benedict XIII., who at the period of the schism had a large follow- ing among the clergy of France. He thought to establish himself and the Papacy in Carpentras, having previously been kept a prisoner at Avignon by the factions who refused to acknowledge his papal authority. He was, however, only successful in retaining the loyalty of a portion of the French Church and nobility, for a few years later, in 1409, the General Council of Cardinals met at Pisa, together with the influential envoys of France and England, and the two rival Popes, Benedict XIII. and 266 •o •<^ ■o ORANGE Gregory XII., were both tried and deposed for contumacy and the violation of their solemn engagements. But for this Carpentras might have been a second Avignon. c^ATHPDRAUofS' siffi^ein CARPENTRAS The Cathedral of St. Siffrein, which Benedict started in the Gothic style, was never completed in a satisfactory manner. The south porch remains, however, a most 267 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE beautiful piece of Gothic, with deUcately designed and carved pinnacles and arches, worthy of a much liner building. The west front of the Cathedral is a makeshift, and although the flowered pillars in the buttresses are very beautiful, the porch and doorways are of much later date. entirely out of keeping with the character of the building. There is plenty of elaborate decoration in the interior, for the chapels contain pictures by Mignard and Parrocel, and there are also great decorative pictures of the Ufe of the name-saint, St. Siffrein, who was the Bishop of Carpentras in the sixth century. 268 •o •c^ •c^ ORANGE The Cathedral is the fortunate possessor of one or two nails from the true Cross, which are exhibited on certain days from a small gallery that projects into the nave over the south entrance. Over the west doorway there [~U~lj~ij~U . -rue are four pictures in magnificent carved wood frames which compel the attention more than the works of art they surround. The frames are the work of an artist who accomplished much of the beautiful wood carving in the Cathedral. His name was Jacques Bernas, but the names 269 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ of the painters of the pictures have been absolutely forgotten. In the early part of the nineteenth century Carpentras suffered a severe loss. The ramparts which had hemmed in and protected the town for five centuries were pulled down, the lofty Porte d'Orange alone excepted. This magnificent tower, which is 120 feet high, crenellated with a machicolated battlement, and pierced with only one comparatively small entrance, is a perfect example of mediaeval defensive architecture. The houses which now stand on the site of the ancient ramparts look mean and insignificant ; even the great plane-trees that line the broad avenue which surrounds the town look like dwarfs when compared with the ancient gate. Quaint flights of steps lead from this avenue up to the town, and rare picturesque bits of old tiled houses delight the eye at unexpected turnings. The town is full of twistings and winding streets, ancient doorways with richly sculptured fronts, sunny courts, shady boulevards, and charming vistas. It is delightfully situated, with a lovely country spread like a rich carpet all around its base. From the courtyard in front of the Eglise de 1' Observance, the view, over the 270 <^ o ORANGE valley in which are the ruins of a Roman aqueduct, to the bare slopes of the snow-crested Mont Ventoux, is one -HE. ftirec-* A-T of varied charm. Groups of little houses peep out from amongst the trees ; clumps of tall cypress, ranged like a 271 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ wall of spires, protect the vineyards from the blighting mistral's chill ; villages nestle in the shelter of trees whose rich foliage lingers long after summer has departed ; a Provenfal landscape lies all around the town, bewitching the eye and captivating the emotions. Standing in a small courtyard surrounded by the walls of a seventeenth-century bishop's palace, now the Hotel de Ville, is a small triumphal arch which has been battered by wind and rain for twenty centuries. It is only a single arch, and considerable doubt exists as to its exact age. On the two sides there are sculptured in high relief figures of captive Gauls. The columns that form each angle of the arch are little more than fragments, but the engaged columns on the inside have suffered less. This arch was supposed by some archaeologists to have some connection with the great arch at Orange, but nothing can be proved with any certainty. It remains one of those puzzling relics of the past that will continue to provoke differences of opinion until the fabric crumbles out of human sight and mingles with the dust of ages. A little local train runs from Tarascon through vine- yards, ploughed fields, and pasture lands, stopping at tiny 272 TO .nosti^aD'^os. i8 273 -£><=>. h2?< orange wayside shelters too insignificant to warrant a name. Its destination is Orgon, but about midway between the limits of its journey it stops at St. Remy, a little town of about five thousand inhabitants. This is a typical Provenfal village, full of traditions, customs, and leisured existence, like hundreds of others in the Rhone valley, and but for its close proximity to the ancient Roman town of Glanum Livii, few strangers would ever walk its streets. It still retains traces of a former prosperity, and many of the houses in its quaint streets are embellished with fine portals of the Renaissance architecture. It has had famous and illustrious citizens too, whom it honours with statues that ornament the public places. The astrologer, Nostradamus, who was patronised by the great and believed in by all, lived for some years in retirement in the little town. It was he who was in- directly responsible for the ruin of the poor imaginative man who spent his time and fortune in excavating the ground floor of the Tour Magne in the vain search for a " golden fowl." History does not relate if the astrologer's prediction " that a farmer would make his fortune by the discovery of a golden cock" ever did come true, or if the disappointed treasure-seeker 273 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE <^ of the Tour Magne ever sought an interview with the prophet. The oldest inhabitants of St. Remy may tell of the gradual decline in the splendour of its fate, in the merri- ment of its song and dance ; but the youngest glory in the Sunday visits of the Cinema. Occasionally a strolling troupe of players invade the town, and in the open air, with a sad semblance of gaiety, emulate the" Jongleurs " of old in their efforts to amuse. But the men in these little villages make their own amusements, and in the summer evenings they congregate in the public squares, and under the shelter of the great plane-trees play at their game of bowls, the same game that is popular in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and even across the Mediterranean in Tunis and Algiers. Any piece of ground, even the highway, will serve for their purpose, and casual passers- by or spectators run no little risks from the balls, which are not trundled or rolled along the ground, but are thrown high through the air. The four caf^s which St. Remy boasts are large enough for its wants, and their clients, dressed in fustian, indulge with temperance in absinthe, cards, and tobacco, most of them retiring early in the evening, for St. Remy does not 276 o o ORANGE keep late hours like Nimes or Aries. The Church at St. Remy is a most imposing building for so small a town ; it is classic in design and modern in construction, but it is built beneath an ancient belfry with a tapering spire, Gothic and beautiful, a relic of the fourteenth century. A long straight road, sheltered and shaded from wind c and sun by great plane-trees that range on either side, leads from the town to the foot of the Alpilles. The vista is extensive, and the rugged hills that end it assume the appearance of a gigantic fortress. Just outside the town, sheltered by a great chestnut- tree, there stands an ancient church, " Our Lady of Pity," 277 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ORANGE the Alyscamps at Aries, or possibly some other ancient burial-ground. Who can say ? All the little homesteads have small patios in front or at the sides of them ; vines trail up the columns that support the lean-to roofs, columns that are either of Roman workmanship or imitations, but the ancient 379 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE ^ character is well preserved. About a mile up this road are two monuments of the earliest Roman time ; grey as the hills that form a background to them, delicate in contrast to nature's rugged sculptures, they are memorials of the skill of hands whose work was finished two thousand years ago. The sculptors have been lavish of their time and talents, and although the freshness of their delicate and bold carvings has worn off, time has softened and mellowed them, even as it does a refined or noble human face. The smaller monument is a specimen of a tri- umphal arch, much damaged, but what remains is more beautiful in its proportions and simplicity than many of the larger triumphal arches found in Provence. The other monument, the tomb of the Julii, has an inscription on the architrave of the second story, — SEX . L . M . JULIEI . C . F . PARENTIBUS . SUEIS . which translated means that the monument was raised to the memory of their parents by Sextus, Lucius, and Marcus Julii, the sons of Caius. It is a mausoleum of exquisite symmetry and distinction ; on the square base two bas-reliefs of battle and hunting scenes indicate that Caius was a warrior who was no less distinguished in the chase than on the battle-field. The second story is a 280 •o •o ORANGE square turret which has four niches, and is enriched with fluted columns at each corner ; the entablature above is embellished with mouldings and ornament and sur- mounted by a small circular turret, with ten fluted Corinthian columns, inside of which are two statues wanting the heads. The amount of well-considered orna- T«£ TflWMPMM. ARCH. ment lavished upon these memorials, one of victories accomplished, the other of the highly honoured dead, is an eloquent tribute to the sentiments that animated the Romans as well as to the distinction and skill of their artists. These two solitary monuments are all that remain of the ancient city, but they stand steadfast at the foot of the rugged hills, the faithful sentinels of a vanished empire. Far removed from the busy life of cities to-day, they have 281 A TOUR THROUGH OLD PROVENCE known in the past the pressure of the multitude and the noisy hum of humankind, for the ancient town nestled around them on all sides. How it happened that the Visigoths, who in the fifth century destroyed the Roman city, allowed the arch to remain, is one of those puzzles that never will be solved ; for on the two sides of the triumphal arch their ancestors are represented as captives led in chains. Works of art, precious and beautiful, had no influence to stay their devastating hand ; culture made no appeal to their rugged natures, for in their rage against their persecuting masters they razed to the ground works of fine art and beauty that were the pride and glory of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. 282 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS Alyscamps at Aries, Tombs in the, 176, 203 Arles, 213 ; The Town Hall, 177 ; The Arena, 179 ; Type, 188 ; The Roman Theatre, 194, 204 ; Greek Type, 197 ; In a Cafe, 200 ; St. Honorat, 205 ; Constantine's Palace, 208 ; The Alyscamps, 203 ; Doorway, 209 ; A Well, 214 ; Woman of, 240 Augustus, Gate of, Nimes, 237 Avignon, Frontispiece ; Papal Palace, 14, 27, 43 ; A Tiny Home- stead, 17 ; A Farmhouse near, 19 ; Pont St. Benezet, 32, 34 ; Ramparts, 36 ; A Countryman, 39 ; The Palace of the Popes, 49 ; Types, 59, 66, 69 ; St. Didimus, 61 Baux, Les, 128 ; The Castle, 129 ; The Pavilion of Queen Jeanne, 141 ; The Church, 145 ; The Mansion of the Man- villas, 147 ; A Window at, 149 ; The Postern, 116, 155 Carpentras^ Street Steps in, 64 ; Cathedral of St. Siffrein, 267 ; Notre Dame, 268 ; The Porte de Orange, 269 ; The Arch, 271 Carree, The Maison, Nimes, 225 Cathedral, Avignon, 27 ; Nimes, 243 ; St. Siffrein, 267 Chartreuse, Gateway of Monastery, 89 ; The Fountain in the Cloisters, 91 Clanum, a Well near, 278 ; The Trumphal Arch and Tomb at, 281 Constantine's Palace, Aries, 208 Daudet's Windmill, Les Baux, 135 Diana, The Ruined Temple of, Nimes, 233 Jeanne, The Pavilion of Queen, Les Baux, 141 Julii, Tomb of the, 279 Magne, The Tour, Nimes, 239 Manvilles, The Mansion of the, Les Baux, 147 Montmajour, 144, 163, 171 ; On the Road to, 153 ; Chapel of Ste. Croix-en- Jerusalem, 160 ; The Monastery, 166, 169 283 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS NlMES, Arches of the Arena, i8i ; Arena, 185, 229 ; Arcade, 191 ; Street in, 220 ; Roasting at, 221 ; The Maison Carrie, 225 ; A Shoeblack at, 227 ; The Venus of, 231 ; The Ruined Temple of Diana, 233 ; Holy Orders, 236 ; Gate of Augustus, 237; The Tour Magne, 239; Frieze of 12th Century on the Cathedral, 240 Nostradamus, Fountain to, 273 Orange, 45 ; An Old Courtyard, 23 ; The Arch at, 254 ; The Town Hall, 255 ; Old Houses at, 257 ; The Theatre, 259, 261 ; The Protestant Church, 263 ; The Porte de Orange, Car- pentras, 269 ; In a Caf6, 282 Palace of the Popes, The, Avignon, 49 Papal Palace from the River, Avignon, 14, 27, 43 ; The Silver Bell, 53 ; Front Entrance to, 57 Philip the Fair, Tower of, Villeneuve, 77 ; Window-seat in the, 82 Pied de Sanglier, The, 223 Pont-du-Gard, 249 ; An Old Water-mill near the, 247 Remoulins, 246 Renard, Church at Chateau, 133 ; A Street in, 137 Rene Castle, King, 103, 107 Rhone, 71, 72 ; Boats on the, 71 St. Andre, Fort, 83 St. Benezet, Avignon, Interior of Chapel of, 48 St. Benezet, Pont, 32, 34 Ste. Croix-en-Jerusalem, Chapel of, 160 St. Didimus, Avignon, 61 St. Honorat, Aries, 205 St. Martha's, Tarascon, 113 St. Remy, Fountain to Nostradamus at, 273 ; Our Lady of Pity, 277 St. Siffrein, Cathedral of, 267 " Tarasc," The, 119 Tarascon, A Gateway, 80, 99 ; A Bar in, loi ; An Old Garden in, 109 ; St. Marthas, 113 ; A Street in, 121 Ventoux from Carpentras, Mount, 15 Villeneuve, Tower of Philip the Fair, 77, 82 ; A Hill- top, 79 ; A Street in, 85 284 INDEX Agrippa, 220 Agrippa, Marcus Vispanius. 223 Ahenobarbus, Domitius, 256 Aix, 117 Albi. 38 Alix, Princess, 153 Alphonse of Aragon, Duke, 102 Alpilles, Les (Little Alps), 127 Alyscamps, The, 202 Amphitheatre of Aries, 180 Andrew, son of Carobert, King of Hungary, 21, 22 Arausio, 258 Aries, 175 ; legend of the betro- thal feast given by King Nan- nos, 176 ; . amphitheatre built, 179 ; discovery of the Venus of Aries, 183 ; removal of the town from the arena, 188 ; gladiators encouraged by Julius Caesar, 190 ; restoring of the ruined theatre, 194; theatres of the Greeks, 195 ; tombs found in the Alyscamps, 198 ; inscrip- tions oa tombs, 199 ; tomb of Julia Tyrannia, 199 ; rebuilding of theChurchof St. Honorat, 203 ; the Cathedral of St. Trophimus built in the twelfth century, 206 ; the monster " Tarasque," 207 ; the combining of Pagan and Christian arts and religions, 208 ; obelisk found in the ancient Roman circus, 211 ; the Place du Forum, 212 ; Mistral the poet, 213, 214 Amaud, 140 Auguste, Porte d', 237 Avignon (City of the Popes), or Avenio, 13 ; " Babylonish Cap- tivity," the, 1 5 ; threatened by Romans, 24 ; Roman monu- ments, 25 ; setting up of a Republic, 26 ; paintings and frescoes, 29 ; legend of the Bridge of Avignon, 34, 35 ; siege in 1226, 37 ; conflict of the faiths, 38 ; Raymond humili- ated, 39 ; re-excommunication of Raymond, 40 ; work of re- storation, 44 ; restoration of paintings of the fourteenth century, 48 ; restoration of pictures, sculpture, and build- ings, 49, 50, 51; main door to chapel unearthed, 51 ; soldiers sent by Charles V. to drive Pierre de Luna from the place, 56 ; fortress stormed by King's troops, 57 ; gunpowder treason, 58 ; massacre in the GlaciSre, 59, 63 ; the White Terror of 1 8 1 5 , 64 ; revolutionists of the South, 62 ; garrison of the Re- publicans shot down by Royalist Volunteers, 63 ; Marshal Brune shot, 65 ; Place de 1' Hotel de ViUe, 71 Barthelasse, 31, 72 Baux, Les, 127 ; the approach over Les Alpilles, 127 ; canal dug across La Crau, 130 ; re- storation of the Chateau in 1444, 133; Langue d'Oc, or Proven9al, used until well on into the fif- teenth century, 1 34 ; romance of a Jongleur, 136 ; Court of Queen Jeanne, where women were judges, 141 ; Guillaume de 285 INDEX -c- •£> Cabestan slain by Raymond, 144 ; excavations made in crypt of the Church of St. Vincent, 145 ; origin of the name of Porcelets, 151 ; Grotto of the Fairies, 152 ; two relics of the Roman times, 254 Baux, Des, 131 Baux, Raymond de. Prince of Orange, 255 Beaucaire, Count, in Belvezet, Our Lady of, 87 Benedict XI., :8 Benedict XII., 43 Benedict XIII. (Pierre de Luna), 56, 266 BferengSre, Princess, 142 Bernas, Jacques, 269 Bertrand de Goth, d'Agoust, Archbishop of Bordeaux, 18 Boucicaut, Marshal, 56 Brune, Marshal, 65 Cabestan, Guillaume de, 142, 144 Caesar, Julius, 257 Caius, 224, 280 Calvert Museum, 25 Camargue, La, 202 Carpentras, 63, 265 , Cavalier Mountain, 219 Charlemagne, 160 Charles I. of Anjou, 21 Charles VI., 237 Charles IX., 204 ChevaUers, Hall of the, 83 Choisi, General, 60 Claud, Archbishop of Turin, 37 Claud II., 150 Clement V., 18, 21, 265 Clement VI., 22, 43, 55 Coupetgte,Jourdain, 59 Crau, La, 128, 130 " Crucifixion," 52 Daniel, 140 Daudet, 97 Diana, Temple of, 235 Durazzo, Charles, Duke of, 24 Eglise de I'Observance, 270 Escuyer, L', 60 Fairies, Grotto of the, 152 Fenchiers, Boulevard, 245 Flouquet, 140 Forum, Place du, 215 Garde Robe, 48 Geoffrey VI., 168 Glanum Livii, 275 Gregory XI., 56 Grottes, Rue des, Avignon, 25 Henry IV., 240 " Holy Cross," Chapel of the, 159, 162 Innocent III., Pope, 38 Innocent VI., 88 Joanna, 21, 23 John XXII., Pope (Jacques d'Euse), 30 Jongleurs, 136 Jourdain (Coupetete), 59, 60 JuUi, 280 Languedoc, 88 Lapidaire, Mus6e, 232 " Last Judgment," 52 Laval, Jean de, 133 Leibulfe, Count, 1 32 Louis of Hungary, 22 Louis XL, 123 Louis XIV., 225, 259 Louis XVI., 164 Lucius, 224 Massilia (Marseilles), 175 Manvilles, Hotel de, 150 Maries, Les, 154 Marius, 257 Martel, Charles, 160, 229 Mignard, 268 Monaco, H6tel, or Monte Carlo, Hotel de, 146 286 •^y- ■<^ INDEX Montmajour, 159 ; dedication of the Chapel of the Holy Cross by Charlemagne, 159 ; outbreak of the Revolution, 164 ; Confes- sional of St. Trophimus, 165 ; customary offering of sturgeon to Geoffrey VI., 168 ; Benedic- tine Monastery of, 171; legend of the foundation of the Monastery, 172 Montmorency, Chateau de, 105 Nannos, King (Nan), 176 Napoleon, 225 Nero, Claudius Tiberius, 179 Nicol^te, no Ntmes (Nemausus), 219 ; the Celtic tribe conquered by the Romans, 220 ; baths built in the first century, 220 ; coins " pied du sanglier," 222 ; building of Pont du Gard, 223 ; the great Arena erected, 224 ; the Maison Carree built during the first years of Christian era, 224 ; Arthur Young's description of the Maison Carree, 226 ; building of town in Arena, 229 ; descrip- tion of the Temple of Diana, 235 ; Tour Magne 350 feet above sea-level, 238 ; legend of Golden Cock, 239 ; customs of the evolutionary South, 245 ; legend of the Pont du Gard, 249 Nostradamus, 239, 275 Notre Dame des Doms, the Cathe- dral of, 26 Octavius, 257 Octavius, Augustus, 223 Orange, Princes of, 259 Orange, 253 ; the Triumphal Arch, an important monument of Roman times, 253 ; theories as to the origin of the Triumphal Arch, 256 ; stupendous wall forming back of the proscenium of Roman theatre, 259, 260 ; Princes of Orange converted theatre into fortress, 261 ; two rival Popes tried and deposed, 267 ; ancient bits of masonry utilised in modern buildings, 278 ; tomb of the Julii, 280 Orgon, 27s Palace of the Popes, 26, 44 Papal Palace, 67 Papal Throne, 29 Parrocel, 268 Penitents, Black, 62 Penitents, White, 62 Perigueux, Bishop of, 124 Peter of Castelnau, 38 Petrarch, 15 Philip the Fair of France, 16 Philippe, Louis, 89 Phoceans, 24 Pierre de Luna, 83 Pity, Our Lady of, 277 Pius, Antoninus, 224 Place Fortin, 146 Pointre, 65 Pontiff, 30 Porcelets, 150 " Prophets, The," 52 Rambert, Abb6, 161, 166 Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, 38 Remoulins, 246 Rene, Chateau, 98, in Rene, King (King of Naples), 100, 116, 133 Rhone Valley, 14 Richard Coeur de Lion, 140 Rioni, 67 Rocher des Doms, 31 Rock of the Doms, 26 Sacrovir, Julius, 258 St. Andr6, Fort, 82 St. Andr6, Fortress, 84 St. Anne, Church of, 197 St. Anthony, 90 St. Baudile, 241 287 INDEX •^y" ■^o St. Benezet, Bridge of, 31, 56 St. Castor, 241 St. Etienne, Church of, 203 St. Francis d'Assisi, 120 St. Fronto, 124 St. Honorat, Church of, 203 St. Martha, 28, 117 St. Martha, Church of, 115 St. Martial, Chapel of, 47 St. Paul, 241 St. Perpetu6, 241 St. Pierre, Place, 25 St. Remy, 127, 276 St. Roland, Tower of, 193 St. Ruf, 28, 36 St. Trophimus, Church of, 199 Salle Brulle, 58 Salle du Garde, loS Sebastian!, Colonel, 48 Septimus Severus, Arch of, 254 Seville, Archbishop of, 58 Suetonius, 256 Tarascon, 97 ; the famous Tar- tarin penned by Daudet banned, 98 ; King Rene involved in a series of complications, 100 ; marriage of King Rene's daughter, 103 ; description of interior of Castle, 106; the story of Aucassin and Nico- ISte, 108 ; legend of the Tarasc, IIS ; King Rent's vision, 116 ; St. Martha's triumph over the Tarasc, 118 ; pageant prohibited in 1904, 119; reproduction of the reliquary given up in the starvation times of the great Revolution, 123 " Tarasque," 118 Tartarin and Tarascon, 97 Theodoric, King, 189 Tiberius, 258 Toledo, Archbishop of, 58 Toulouse, 40 Trucat, 239 Turenne, Countess of, 24 Tyrannia, Julia, 199 Uzds, Duchesse d', 228 Valdenses (Albigenses), 37 Valence, Count de, 109 VaJfenier, de, 93 Vandemont, Count, 102 Vanloo, 120 Ventoux, Mount, 112 Venus of Aries, The, 183 Vidal, 140 Villegis, King, 172 Villeneuve, 31 ; approach to the town, 75 ; battlements of for- tresses and castles, 75 ; stone seat, 81 ; indication of prison- ers' thoughts, 84 ; the Monas- tery of the Chartreuse founded by Innocent VI., 88 ; Monastery tery of Chartreuse destroyed by lightning, 93 Ville, Hotel de. Orange, 262, 272 Visigoths, The, 229, 282 Voltaire, Rue, 184 Young, Arthur, 225 Printed by Haiell, Watsori-& Viney, Ld., London and AyUAury, England.