and severely simple. It is one of the landmarks of Grasse. It dates from
1368, but was shattered by lightning in 1742 and rebuilt at that period.
Close to the cathedral is the tower of Grasse, the Tour du Puy, an
ancient watch tower raised on Roman foundations. It too is square and
plain, but almost black in colour and very menacing by reason of its
great height and its massive strength. It is a veritable bully of a
tower and forms a harsh contrast with the pale, delicately moulded and
fragile-looking little church. It has certain modern windows, made still
more incongruous by sun-shutters and by the ancient Romanesque windows
which find a place by the side of them.
There is a marble tablet on the Tour du Puy which is of some interest.
It is to the immortal memory of Bellaud de la Bellaudière. The holder of
this most sonorous name was a poet. He was born in 1532. He appears to
have played in Grasse the parts of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; for when he
was not engaged in writing emotional ballads he occupied himself with
thieving. He did well in both of these pursuits. As a poet he was
honoured by this tablet on the tower; as a robber he came to the gallows
and was hanged by the neck.
The Rue Droite, the main highway of old Grasse, is a narrow lane of
small shops that continues the Rue du Cours. It is not so straight as
its name suggests, being, indeed, a little unsteady. It contains many
old houses of interest with fine stone doorways, some with a rounded and
others with a pointed arch. Over one entry is the date 1527. At No. 24
lived Doria de Roberti who in 1580 had the distinction of being both
physician to the king and perfumer to the queen, a position which, at
the present day, would be one of great professional perplexity. The
house is not worthy of one who is described as “the earliest known
perfumer”; for it is quite modern in aspect and is given up jointly to a
café and to a shop where ready-made clothes for women are sold. No. 28
is a fine house, with an ancient doorway which is said to have borne the
date 1622; while the portal of No. 32 has a dignity which—as is often
the case—the rest of the building does not maintain.
From the Rue Droite the interesting Rue de l’Oratoire leads, after some
vacillation, to the Place aux Aires. This is a very charming little
square, occupied in the centre by a double row of trees and, at the far
extremity, by a fountain. The end of the tiny Place which faces the
fountain has an interest which is not apparent to the eye. It is
occupied by three quite modest houses, numbered 37, 39 and 41. No. 37 is
a ladies’ hat shop, No. 39 is a draper’s with the inviting name “Au
grand Paris” and No. 41 is tenanted by a butcher. These three humble
shops represent the spot upon which stood no less a building than the
palace of Queen Jeanne and, indeed, in the house No. 41 can be seen her
kitchen stairs—a poor relic but the only one. In the chapter which
follows some account is given of this remarkable and alarming woman and
of certain things that she did.
[Illustration: GRASSE: THE PLACE AUX AIRES.]
Of the many other interesting streets of Grasse it is impossible to
speak in detail, except to draw attention to the fine Romanesque windows
in the Rue Mougins-Roquefort and to those picturesque streets Rue sans
Peur and Rue Rêve Vieille which are more curious even than their unusual
names.
Most fascinating of all is the Rue de l’Evêché. It is a street of the
Middle Ages, little changed and little spoiled. It is a mystery street
full of romance and suggestion. It makes one draw one’s breath. It
recalls so vividly a score of tales of mediæval days; for it is just
that narrow, winding, dim and haunting lane where thrilling things
always happened—stabbings in the dark, pursuits with torches and the
clang of arms, whisperings of cloaked conspirators, the beckoning hand
and the lover with the panting lady in the hood.
The business of Grasse, as is well known, is the making of scent, soap
and refined oil. It is an ancient, famous and most prosperous industry.
The quantity of flowers consumed in the perfumeries is so vast as to be
hard to realise.
Mr. Kaye states, in a quiet way and without concern, that four million
pounds of orange blossoms and three million pounds of roses—to name no
others—are swept into the iron maw of the factory every year. Weight is
a little misleading when it deals with rose leaves and mimosa blossoms
so Mr. Kaye explains that, as regards jasmine alone, nine billions six
hundred millions of jasmine flowers are picked by hand every year to
provide the world with the _jasmin_ perfume.
“The flower harvest,” he writes, “lasts nearly the whole year round. It
begins in February with the violet which lasts till April. In March and
April also hyacinths and jonquils are plucked. May marks the greatest
activity in the harvest of roses and orange flowers, which harvest
terminates usually in June. Mignonette and carnations are also gathered
in this month. The jasmine is gathered in July, and the harvest lasts
generally till October 10th. The tuberose is also picked during August
and September.”
As the country for miles around Grasse is given up to the cultivation of
flowers it may be assumed that the town lies in a Garden of Eden,
dazzling with colour and laden with the perfumes of Araby. But it
realises no such vision; since flowers grown for commerce, drilled into
unfeeling lines and treated like the turnip of the field, are very
different from those grown for pleasure and those that blossom, by their
own sweet will, in the wilds. They differ as a crate of violets knocked
down to the auctioneer’s hammer at Covent Garden differs from the shy,
purple flowers that fringe a scented passage through a wood.
Those who have any regard for flowers should avoid a perfume factory as
they would a slaughter-house; for it is not pleasant to see a white
company of soft orange blossoms lying dead at the bottom of a pit,
sodden and macerated, nor to watch roses being slowly boiled alive, nor
jasmine flowers crushed to death upon the rack.
Many hundreds of day-tourists pour through Grasse during the months of
the winter. They come by char-à-bancs and motor-brakes. Their stay in
the town is very brief, for the “excursion to Grasse” embraces much in
its breathless flight. They are deposited at a scent factory by a not
disinterested driver, and there they purchase soap with eagerness, as if
it were the bread of life. Ninety-nine per cent. of these soap-questing
pilgrims do not go beyond the factory which they appear to regard as a
sort of shrine, even though its odour is not that of sanctity. To just
one out of the hundred the idea may occur that soap of quite fair
quality may be obtained in many places—even in Brixton in England—but
that in few places can there be found an old French city so full of
picturesque memories and possessed of so exquisite a cathedral as Grasse
provides. From a hygienic point of view the triumph of soap over
sentiment is commendable, but the hygienic attitude of mind is one of
rigour and offensive superiority. The one tourist out of the hundred
wanders into the ancient town, loses his way, loses his char-à-banc and
returns by the tramcar, with his mind full of charming recollections but
his pocket empty of soap. While he glories over the romance of mediæval
by-ways his fellow-tourists gloat over a wash-hand basin or a pungent
handkerchief.
-----
[15] Quoted by Mr. W. J. Kaye in his excellent work on “Grasse and Its
Vicinity,” published in 1912, a work which provides a good summary of
the history of the town.
[16] “Grasse and Its Vicinity,” by W. J. Kaye, 1912, p. 17.
[17] A photograph and description of this remarkable relic will be found
in Mr. Kaye’s book.
XI
A PRIME MINISTER AND TWO LADIES OF GRASSE
ROMÉE DE VILLENEUVE.—There is a somewhat picturesque story in the old
chronicles relating to one Romée de Villeneuve, seneschal of Grasse and
the _premier ministre_ of the Count of Provence.[18] The count with whom
the story deals was Raymond Berenger IV, who came into power in 1209 and
died in 1245. This Raymond was the husband of the beautiful Beatrix of
Savoy—the same Beatrix who inspired the passionate verses of the
troubadour of Eze.
Raymond the count when walking one day through the streets of Grasse
came upon a pilgrim. The pious man was dressed in the robe of his
brotherhood. In his hand was a long staff; upon his feet were sandals
and in his hat the cockleshell. The count was struck by his carriage and
by the nobility of his appearance. He stopped him and questioned him as
to his pilgrimage, as to the things that he had seen and learned in his
journey through many countries and by way of many roads. The answers
that the pilgrim gave pleased him. He was impressed by his intelligence,
by the gentleness of his manner and the graceful sentiment that
accompanied his talk. It was agreeable to converse with a man who had
seen strange cities and who had gleaned such curious grains of wisdom in
his tramp through valley and wood, by stony paths and smooth.
[Illustration: GRASSE: RUE DE L’EVÊCHÉ.]
The count talked longer with the pilgrim than the courtiers liked. They
frowned and fidgeted, scuffled with their feet, assumed attitudes of
weariness and talked among themselves rather audibly about “this
fellow.” Finally the count asked the pilgrim if he would come into his
service and the worthy man, after some hesitation and with proper
expressions of respect, consented.
Romée had not been long under the castle roof before Raymond recognised
his ability and his absolute uprightness. The count and the pilgrim
became more than master and servant; they became friends. Many a time
the two would sit in a corner of the terrace when the heat of the day
was over and Romée would tell of the wonders of the Eternal City, of the
street fighting he had seen in Florence between the Amidei and the
Buondelmonte, of the new church of San Giovanni at Pistoia, of the
wonderful bell tower they were building at Pisa, and of the ruins of the
palace of Theodoric the Great that he had wandered among at Ravenna. He
would talk too of strange things, of the savage, mist-enveloped island
of England where the cliffs were white, of the flight of birds, of
wondrous flowers that bloomed among the snow, of the hiving of bees, of
the curious ways of women.
Year by year the pilgrim rose in power; year by year he took a wider
part in the affairs of state; and year by year the affection that bound
the two men together deepened and gained in strength. Romée became the
count’s most trusted counsellor and confidant, and, in due course, was
raised to the position of _premier ministre_ and seneschal of Grasse.
This was a terrible blow to the courtiers, the last straw that broke the
back of their restraint. They had always been jealous of this interloper
and hated him heartily and openly. To see the most dignified office that
the Court of Provence could grant bestowed upon a stranger, a man
stumbled upon in the street, was beyond endurance. The count was
bewitched and befooled, they said, and must be awakened from his evil
dream.
The courtiers took the matter of the enlightenment of their prince in
hand. They began to hint at things, to sow suspicions, to raise subjects
for inquiry. Did the count know anything of this man, anything of his
parentage or antecedents? The count knew only that Romée was a man noble
in heart and mind, his trusted counsellor and esteemed friend.
No seed grows so quickly as the seed of doubt. No hint but gains
strength by repetition. Those about the Court, judging that the count’s
confidence must be shaken by their efforts, ventured to go beyond
hinting and whispering and the shrugging of shoulders. They came one day
boldly before him and said that Romée was taking money from the
treasury, was in fact robbing the State. The count was furious that so
disgraceful a charge should be made against his favourite, told the
informers that they lied and demanded instant grounds for their base
charges. The spokesman of the party replied that the minister kept, in
his private room, a coffer which he allowed no one to touch and which no
one had ever seen open. From sounds heard at night by listeners outside
the door there was little doubt that in this chest Romée was hoarding
money pilfered from the treasury.
The speaker, with a bow, humbly suggested that his lordship should come
with them at once to the minister’s room and request him to open the
coffer. The count stamped and swore. He would never subject his friend
to such an indignity. De Villeneuve was as far above suspicion as
himself. The proposal was monstrous. Some soft-voiced officer then
hinted that the minister would be glad to put an end to these
unfortunate but persistent rumours by simply opening the box. This
seemed reasonable to the count, but someone, more wily still, whispered
in his ear, “Would he be so glad?” The seed of doubt, long sown in the
prince’s mind, was beginning to break into baneful blossom. He cried,
“No more of this! Come with me, and we will bring this foul matter to an
issue.”
They all made for the minister’s room. Romée was sitting alone. He rose
with extreme surprise to see the count, flushed and hard of face, enter
with this company of solemn men—enemies all—who eyed him like a pack
of wolves. The count, avoiding the gaze of his favourite, pointed at
once to the coffer and said, “I beg you to open that chest.” To this
Romée replied, “My lord, I would prefer, by your grace, not to open it.”
“Why?” demanded the prince. “Because it contains a treasure of mine that
is dear to me and to no one else.” The courtiers began to whisper, to
laugh, to jeer under their breath. The count, stung by their scoffing
murmurs, lost his head, and turning to his minister said with some
sternness, “I bid you to open that chest.” Romée, looking with sadness
into his master’s eyes, said gently, “My lord, since _you_ no longer
trust me, I will open the box.” He withdrew a key from his gown, undid
the lock, and threw wide the lid. The chest was empty but for a few
sorry things—a dusty, tattered pilgrim’s frock, two worn sandals, a
coarse shirt and a weather-stained hat with a cockleshell in it. These
were the things he wore when Raymond Berenger met him in the street.
After a moment of dreadful silence the count, turning to his courtiers,
said in a voice of thunder, “Leave my presence, you scoundrels too mean
to live.”
When the two were alone the prince, placing his hands upon Romée’s
shoulders, said, “Dear friend! I am humbled to the dust. I am more sorry
than any words of mine can tell. Can you ever forgive me?” To which the
one-time pilgrim replied, “My lord, I forgive you a thousand times over;
but you have broken my heart, and now, in God’s name, leave me and let
me be alone.”
There and then Romée de Villeneuve took off his robes of office and,
having donned the pilgrim’s dress in which he had arrived at the castle,
made his way out of the gate into the open road. Raymond Berenger never
saw him again. Where the pilgrim wandered no one knows. All that the
chronicle relates is that he died in the castle of Vence and that his
will was dated 1250—five years after the death of the count, his
master.
Many a time in the days that followed Romée’s disappearance Count
Raymond would be found standing alone in a certain deserted room gazing
at an empty coffer.
* * * * *
Queen Jeanne.—As has been said in the previous chapter, there was in
the Place aux Aires at Grasse a palace of Queen Jeanne, who died in
1382. When Jeanne took refuge in Provence with her second husband—after
the murder of her first—she caused this palace to be built. All that is
left of it, at the present day, is the kitchen stair and a few
mouldings, but, writes Miss Dempster, “there is not a bare-foot child
but can tell you that those steps belonged to the palace of Queen
Jeanne.”[19]
There is no evidence that this meteoric lady ever lived in this house
that she had built, although she was Countess of Provence as well as
Queen of Naples. It was from no indisposition to travel on her part, for
she was never quiet and never in one place long, not even when she was
in prison. Flitting about from Provence to Naples took up no little of
her time, and when she was not occupied on these journeys she was either
pursuing her enemies or being, in turn, pursued by them.
In the language of the history book she “flourished” in the fourteenth
century. The expression is ineffective, for she “blazed” rather than
flourished. She was the political fidget of her time. A beautiful and
passionate woman, she traversed the shores of the Mediterranean like a
whirlwind. Her adventures would occupy the longest film of the most
sensational picture theatre. Tragedy and violent domestic scenes became
her most; but wherever she went there circled around her the makings of
a drama of some kind. All the materials for a moving story were present.
The scene was laid in feudal times when the license of the great was
unrestrained. The heroine was a pretty woman who fascinated everyone who
came in her path. She was, moreover, a wayward lady of ability and wide
ambitions who was quite unscrupulous, who felt herself never called upon
to keep her word and who was determined to get whatever she wanted.
She had a somewhat immoderate taste for matrimony, since she was a widow
four times and would probably have married a fifth husband had not a
friend of her youth strangled her when she was in prison. Her selection
of husbands was catholic, as the list of men she chose will show. They
were, in the order in which they died, Andrew of Hungary, Louis of
Tarentum, James of Majorca, and Otto of Brunswick.
She was charged with having murdered her first husband. The charge was
pressed by popular clamour and she was tried, in great state, in her own
town of Avignon, in Provence, in the year 1348. The Pope himself
presided. At the trial she is said to have made a deep impression on the
court. She startled this august assembly of solemn men. They saw in her
a woman full of the tenderest charm. They were moved by her grace, by
her ease of manner, by the sweetness of her voice, by her
pathos-stirring eloquence, and—strangest of all—by her remarkable
knowledge of Latin. She was acquitted and then publicly blessed by the
Pope.
Her loyal subjects at Naples were not satisfied with this tribunal. They
wanted their queen tried over again. They were rather proud of her and
they liked revelations of palace life. Probably too they knew a little
more than had “come out” at Avignon. Anyhow, the Pope was compelled
again to proclaim her innocent, and, being a man of the world and
anxious to put himself in the right, he added that even if she _had_
murdered her husband she had been the victim of witchcraft and sorcery
and so was not responsible for her actions.
Queen Jeanne the Unquiet was one of the most obstinate women that ever
lived. The only way to influence her was to put her in prison and her
experience of prisons was large. At one time she was disposed to hand
over Provence, or some part of it, to the King of France or other
neighbouring potentate. To stop this recklessness she was arrested by
the barons of Les Baux and of adjacent Provençal towns and locked up.
Having promised never to alienate Provence or any part of it, she was
let out of jail; but she had not long been free before she sold Avignon,
the chief town of Provence, to the Pope for 80,000 gold florins. As an
excuse she said, with a smile, that she was rather short of money.
The obstinacy of this irrepressible lady led to her dramatic ending. She
took a very decided part in the controversy known as the Great Schism of
the West. Her determined attitude led to many and varied troubles.
Finally she was besieged in Castel Nuovo and there had to surrender to
her kinsman and one time friend, Charles of Durazzo. He attempted to
make her renounce the errors—or reputed errors—to which she clung. He
failed, and “finding that nothing could bend her indomitable spirit, he
strangled her in prison on May 12th, 1382.”[20]
* * * * *
Louise de Cabris.—On a certain day, in the year 1769, there was great
commotion in and around the mansion of the Marquis de Cabris in the Rue
du Cours. The young marquis was bringing home his bride. The de Cabris
represented the pinnacle of society in Grasse. They were the great
people of the town. To know them was in itself a distinction. The bride
belonged to a family even more eminent, for she was the daughter of the
Marquis de Mirabeau, of Mirabeau, near Aix en Provence. She was a mere
girl, being only seventeen years of age.
The nice, worthy people of Grasse received her with effusive kindness.
They were sorry for her, because they knew the husband. He was young,
weak and vicious and came from a stock deeply tainted with insanity.
They took the gentle little marquise under their motherly wing. They
petted her, made much of her and comforted her in a warm, caressing way.
They knew as little what kind of innocent they were fussing over as does
a hen who fosters a pretty ball of yellow down that turns into a
duckling.
When Louise, Marquise de Cabris, reached her full stature, those who had
mothered her viewed with amazement the product of their care. They
beheld a lady who was not only the terror of Grasse, but a subject for
scandal far beyond anything that the virtuous town had ever dreamed of.
Louise, the full-grown woman, was beautiful to look at, was an adept in
the arts of seduction, was brilliant in speech and possessed of a
dazzling but dangerous wit. She was a woman of great vitality who loved
excitement and cared little of what kind it was. She was depraved in a
genial kind of way, picturesquely wicked, had a lover, of course—a
feeble youth named Briançon—had no heart and no principles. She could
claim, as one writer says, “the Mirabeau madness and badness and all the
Mirabeau brains.”[21]
When the good old ladies of Grasse gossiped together they no longer
discussed what they could do to help the poor marquise. Their sole
anxiety was to know “what on earth she would do next.” She did a great
deal. Incidentally she challenged another lady to fight a duel with
pistols. Think of it! The timid, clinging bride of a few years taking to
fighting with firearms! What next indeed!
Louise was much attached to her famous brother, the great Mirabeau, the
orator, statesman and roué. Whenever this illustrious man was in a
mess—and he was very often in a mess—he always came for help and
sympathy to his nimble-minded and wicked sister. Louise was the only
member of the Mirabeau family who attended his wedding with Mademoiselle
Marignane, and she had always regarded his shortcomings with indulgence
and even with admiration.
One visit that Mirabeau paid to his sister at Grasse became memorable.
The brother was in some trouble again. The affair had to do with his
wife’s lover and he came to his sister as to an expert in the treatment
of lovers.
Now shortly before his arrival the sober city of Grasse had passed
through a species of convulsion. Placards had been mysteriously posted
all over the town in which the characters of the ladies of Grasse were
attacked in the coarsest and plainest language. It was curious that one
lady’s name was not touched upon. Of all names the name of the Marquise
de Cabris alone was wanting. The inference naturally followed that the
libels had been propagated by the de Cabris. There was a violent and
confused uproar which was hushed at last by the payment to the injured
parties of a large sum by the foolish Marquis de Cabris. Louise, on the
other hand, who had no doubt written the abusive lampoons herself,
placidly disclaimed all knowledge of the matter. She said, with hauteur,
that they were beneath her notice and, at the same time, wished it to be
known that she was very cross with those who had the audacity to suspect
her.
Among the society folk who had “said things” about Madame de Cabris in
connection with the libels was her next-door neighbour, a certain Baron
de Villeneuve-Monans.
The gardens of the baron and the lady touched. These gardens ended in
two terraces one above the other, like two steps. On the upper terrace
the marquise had built a summer house which she called Le Pavillon des
Indes. It was her Petit Trianon, her quiet corner, and was surmounted by
a gilded goat’s head, the goat’s head being the “canting” arms of the
Cabris (_cabri_).