AIGUES MORTES AND MAGUELONNE.
A dead town--The Rhônes-morts--Bars--S. Louis and the Crusades--How S.
Louis acquired Aigues Mortes--His canal--The four littoral chains and
lagoons--The fortifications--Unique for their date--Original use of
battlements--Deserted state of the town--Maguelonne--How reached--History
of Maguelonne--Cathedral--The Bishops forge Saracen coins--Second
destruction of the place--Inscription on door--Bernard de Treviis--His
Romance of Pierre de Provence--Provençal poetry not always immoral--Present
state of Maguelonne.
Aigues Mortes is a dead town, and differs from Maguelonne, to be presently
described, in this, that it is a dead _town_, whereas Maguelonne is only
the ghost of a dead town. It is a great curiosity, for it is a dead
mediæval town surrounded by its walls, and dominated by its keep. But first
about its name, which signifies Dead Waters. If the reader will remember
what has been already said about the structure of the delta of the Rhone,
he will recall the fact that the river is constantly engaged in changing
its mouths. When it has formed for itself a new mouth, it deserts its
former course, which it leaves as a stagnating canal. This occasions the
delta to be striped with what are locally termed Rhônes-morts, whereas a
flowing branch is called a Rhône-vif.
[Illustration: Aigues Mortes.--One of the gates.]
Moreover the stagnant masses of water left by floods are called Aigues
Mortes--Dead Waters; and it is precisely on such that the little fortified
town I am now writing about, stands. I know of no point on the littoral
of the Rhone that offers so excellent an opportunity of observing the
processes of that river than at Aigues Mortes. The river has, indeed, long
ago deserted the branch that once discharged itself here, and it has left
four lines behind it, making successive stages of advance, four bars, with
their several backwaters, now converted into ponds or meres. The Canal of
Beaucaire now passes by Aigues Mortes, and reaches the Mediterranean nearly
three miles below the town.
It was from Aigues Mortes that S. Louis sailed on his Crusades in 1248 and
1270; and it has a little puzzled many people to account for his having
chosen such a wretched place as this for the assembly of his Crusaders and
for embarkation. But he could not help himself.
[Illustration: Aigues Mortes.--Tower of the Bourgignons.]
As soon as Louis had, in 1244, made his vow to assume the cross, his first
care was to obtain on the shores of the Mediterranean a territory and a
port sufficient for the concentration of the troops that were to from
his expedition. But he encountered great difficulty. The king was not
_suzerain_ over the southern provinces of France, and possessed as his own
not a single town on the coast. The port of Narbonne was choked with sand,
and belonged to the viscounts of that town. The port of Maguelonne was
under the sovereignty of the bishop. The lagoons and their openings into
the sea of Montpellier were under the King of Aragon. The ports of Agde and
S. Gilles were subject to the counts of Toulouse, and independent Provence
was not to be attached to the crown till three centuries later. The marshy
district of Aigues Mortes was alone available; it was under the abbey of
Psalmodi, planted amidst the swamps on a little sandy elevation. Louis IX.
entered into negotiations with the abbot, and in exchange for certain royal
domains near Sommière, he was enabled to acquire the town of Aigues Mortes
and all the zone of lagoons between it and the sea.
At that time there existed but a single fortification--the tower of
Matafera--erected about five centuries before as a place of refuge from the
Saracens. S. Louis restored this tower, or rather rebuilt it, in the form
in which it remains to this day. Then he constructed a quay, and scooped
out a canal through the lagoons to the sea. This is the old canal, now full
of sand, and up this vessels were able to proceed through two lagoons to
the tower of Matafera, which acquired later the name of Tour de Constance.
But the old canal had an ephemeral existence; every inundation of the
lagoons of the Rhone altered their depths, and disturbed the canal. A
century or two later another canal was cut between the old one and that
now in use, that also was destined in time to be choked up; but the old
discharging and lading place of the vessels can still be distinguished
by the heaps of ballast thrown out, consisting of stones from Genoa and
Corsica. It is quite a mistake to suppose that Aigues Mortes was on the
sea in the thirteenth century. The Crusaders embarked in the canal cut
by S. Louis, and sailed through the lagoons before they reached the open
Mediterranean.
The most ancient maps show us Aigues Mortes bathed by one of those branches
of the Rhone, now deserted, which go by the name of Rhônes-morts. At a time
before history--at all events the history of Gaul begins, the Rhone had its
principal mouth in the great Etang de Maugio; but it choked up its mouth
there, and advanced eastward in several stages, leaving in its rear, as
the river thus shifted its quarters, a series of dwindling and then dead
channels.
[Illustration: Sketch map of Mortes and its littoral chains.]
What is now the Petit Rhône, reaching the sea at Les Saintes Maries, was
then the main stream, which has long ago turned away, and now discharges
its greatest body of water into the Mediterranean at Saint Louis. It has
left behind it, not only the dead or stagnant Rhones, its neglected beds,
but also, as already noticed, its old bars, and these are very distinctly
marked at Aigues Mortes. The first chain gives us the primitive beach,
which began at the lagoon of Maugio, traversed the entire Camargue, and can
be traced to Fos. It is formed of an almost uninterrupted succession of
sandhills crowned with a tolerably rich vegetation; on it grow the white
poplar, the aleppo and the umbrella pines. To the south of this lay the
prehistoric sea; the ground is horizontal, and although subjected to
culture shows sufficient evidence that it was at one time sea-bed, covered
with more recent alluvium. Here is the great lagoon of Loyran, which,
before many years are passed, will be completely drained, and its bed
turned up by the plough.
Still advancing seaward, we reach a second littoral chain, not so
distinctly marked as the first, but nevertheless distinguishable by its low
line of sandy dunes, on which a scanty growth of tamarisks and coarse grass
is sustained. Then we come to a succession of lagoons, once united into
one, and after them the third bar, presenting exactly the same features--a
low range of sand and pebbles, and beyond it once more lagoons, cut off
from the waves of the Mediterranean by a fourth and last chain, the most
recent, that belongs to the historic epoch.
But that is not all: the wash of the sea, its current settling west, and
carrying with it the mud of the Rhone is gradually, but surely building up
a fifth bar or bank, which will in time close the gulf from the point of
Espignette to the bathing-place of Palavas, when the Gulf of Aigues Mortes
will be converted into a second Etang de Berre.
[Illustration: Map of THE COAST OF PROVENCE & LANGUENDOC showing Old
Lagoons & Deserted River Mouths]
Aigues Mortes is surrounded by its mediæval fortifications just as they
were left by Philip the Bold, son of S. Louis. The plan of the town is
almost quadrilateral, it has six gates and fifteen towers. Only one angle
of the parallelogram is cut off, where stands the stately circular tower
of Constance. The streets are laid out in the most precise manner, cutting
each other at right angles; there are four churches, of which the principal
is Notre Dame des Sablons. The others were all formerly attached to
monasteries or convents.
[Illustration: Original use of battlements.--(_From Viollet-le-Duc._)]
The plan of the fortification is precisely that adopted by the Crusaders
wherever they built defences, in Syria, in Cyprus, in Palestine. The walls
are crenellated, usually without machicolations, pierced with long slots,
and with square holes through which beams were thrust, supporting wooden
balconies which commanded the bases of the walls, and enabled the besieged
to protect themselves against the efforts made by the assailants to sap the
bases of the ramparts, or to escalade the walls. Towers, round and square
at intervals, strengthened the walls, and formed points of vantage and of
assembly for the besieged. Precisely similar fortifications were raised
about the same period at Tortosa, Antioch, Ascalon, Cæsarea, &c.; but
all these have been destroyed, only Aigues Mortes remains, an unique and
perfect example of the systematic fortification adopted by the Crusaders
everywhere.
The reader, probably, has not given a thought to the original purpose of
a battlement, so common on towers and churches and castles. I therefore
venture to show what it was originally. It was a wall broken through
with doorways into the wooden gallery that overhung, and through which
the assailants could be kept from approaching too near to the base of
the walls. But, after a time, these wooden galleries were found to be
inconvenient. Means were taken by the besiegers to set them on fire.
Consequently they were abandoned, and their places were taken by projecting
galleries of stone, supported, not on wooden beams, but on stone corbels,
and it is this second stage in fortification which is called machicolation.
The battlements were retained, but were no longer roofed over. Consequently
it is possible to tell approximately the epoch of a Mediæval fortification,
by a look at the battlements, whether they stand back flush with the walls,
and have the beam-holes, or whether they stand forward, bracketed out from
the walls.
[Illustration: Second stage of battlements.]
Aigues Mortes is a dead town. About a third of the area within the walls is
devoted to gardens, or is waste. The population, which in the thirteenth
century numbered 15,000 souls, has shrunk to a little over 3,000, a number
at which it remains stationary. It does a little sleepy trade in salt, and
sees the barges for Beaucaire pass its walls, and perhaps supplies the
boatmen with wine and bread. The neighbourhood is desolate. The soil is so
full of salt that it is impatient of tillage, and produces only such
herbs as love the sea border. But its lagoons are alive with wild fowl,
rose-coloured flamingoes, white gulls, and green metallic-throated ducks.
And now for Maguelonne. I said that Aigues Mortes was a dead town, but
Maguelonne was the ghost of one. The best way to reach this latter very
singular spot is to take the train from Montpellier to Villeneuve de
Maguelonne, and walk thence to the border of the Etang. There one is pretty
sure to find fishermen--they catch little else than eels--who will row one
across to the narrow strip of land that intervenes between the lagoon and
the sea. The littoral chain here is not of sand and gravel only, for a mass
of volcanic tufa rises to the surface, and originally formed an islet in
the sea, then, when the process began of forming a littoral belt with a
lagoon behind it, the sands clung to this islet and spread out from it to
left and right.
On this volcanic islet stood first a Greek and then a Roman city, but of
its history nothing is known till the sixth century, when it was attacked
from the sea by Wamba, King of the Visigoths. It had been an episcopal city
for a century before. After the Visigoths came the Saracens, who gave the
place their name, and the harbour of Maguelonne was called Port Sarasin.
In 737, Charles Martel, in order to clear the pirates completely out of
their stronghold, destroyed the city to its last foundation, with the sole
exception of the old church of S. Peter. The bishop took up his abode on
the mainland at Villeneuve, and the seat of the bishopric was moved to
Castelnau near Montpellier. For three centuries the islet was abandoned
and left a heap of ruins. But it was restored in the eleventh century. The
walls were again set up, and flanked with towers, and a causeway consisting
of a chain of wooden bridges was carried across the lagoon to Villeneuve.
The entrance to the port was closed lest it should invite Saracen pirates,
and another opened under the walls of the town which could be rendered
impassable by a chain at the first sign of danger. The newly-built town
speedily showed vigour, became populous, and the harbour was filled with
the merchandise of the Mediterranean. Two popes visited the city, Gelasius
II. in 1118, and Alexander III. in 1162. In addition to the Cathedral of
S. Peter, other churches were raised, dedicated to S. Augustine and S.
Pancras. A castle with keep was erected.
For several centuries Maguelonne was a sort of ecclesiastical republic, in
which the bishop exercised the office of president. It became very rich and
luxurious. The bishop, not too scrupulous, forged imitation Saracen coins,
and was called to order for doing this by Clement IV. in 1266. It seemed
to the sovereign pontiff a scandal, not that the bishop should forge the
coins, but that he should forge them with the name of Mahomet on them as
"Prophet of God." In 1331 statutes for the monastery on Maguelonne were
drawn up, which proved that the discipline kept therein left much to be
desired; and a monastic treatise on cooking that came thence shows that the
monks and canons were consummate epicures.
Maguelonne was ruined first by Charles Martel. It was again, and finally
ruined, by Louis XIII. The castle, the walls, the towers, the monastic
buildings--everything was levelled to the dust, with the sole exception of
the cathedral church. The stones of the dismantled buildings encumbered the
ground till 1708, when they were all carried off for the construction of
the new canal which runs along the coast through the chain of lagoons from
Cette to Aigues Mortes.
"A church and its archives," says the historian of Maguelonne, "that is all
that the revolution of fate has respected of one of the principal monastic
centres in the south. A church in which service is no longer said, and
archives that are incomplete. Even the very cemetery of Maguelonne has
vanished, as though Death had feared to encounter himself in this desert,
where naught remained save the skeleton of a cathedral. Yet what dust is
here! Phoenician, Greek, Celtic, Roman, Christian, Mahomedan, French: A few
tombs escaped the observation of the stone collectors of 1708, and even
fewer inscriptions, excepting such as are found within the church, that
is all! What a realization is this of the sentence on all things human,
_Pulvis es_." [1]
[Footnote 1: Germain: "Maguelonne et ses Évêques," 1859.]
[Illustration: East end of the Church of Maguelonne.]
The islet of Maguelonne is but one knot in the long thread of _cordon
littoral_ that reaches from Cette to Aigues Mortes, and it can be reached
on foot by land from Palavas, but the simplest and shortest route is by
boat in half an hour over the shallow mere, nowhere over three feet six
inches deep. The boats of the fishermen are all flat-bottomed, and the men
have to row gingerly, lest their oars strike the bottom, or else they punt
along. One can see as one crosses, the points of rest of the old causeway.
The church, like that of Les Trois Maries, is feudal castle as much
as cathedral, calculated, on occasion, to give refuge within to the
inhabitants of the town, whilst the garrison stood on the flat roof and
showered arrows, stones, molten sulphur and pitch upon the besiegers.
The whole of this coast was liable to the descent of Moorish and Saracen
pirates, consequently the same type of church prevails all along it. The
western tower is ruinous, but the remainder of the church is in tolerable
condition. It is cruciform, with an apse, as but very narrow windows, high
up and few. The roof is slabbed with stone, so as to form a terrace on
which the besieged could walk, and whence they could launch their weapons
through the slots and between the battlements. At the south-west end of the
church is a curious entrance door of the twelfth century, with a relieving
arch of coloured marbles over it, and the apostles Peter and Paul rudely
sculptured as supporters of the arch. They occupy a crouching position, and
are sculptured on triangular blocks. In the tympanum is the Saviour seated
in glory. But what in addition to its quaintness of design gives peculiar
interest to this doorway is the inscription it bears:--
AD PORTVM VITE SITIENTES QVIQVE VENITE.
HAS INTRANDO FORES, VESTROS COMPONITE MORES.
HINC INTRANS ORA, TVA SEMPER CRIMINA PLORA.
QVICQVID PECCATVR LACRIMARVM FONTE LAVATVR.
B. D. IIIVIS FECIT HOC ANNO INC. DO. CLXXVIII.
Let those who will come thirsting to the gate of Life.
On entering these doors compose your manners.
Entering here pray, and ever bewail your crimes.
All sin is washed away in the spring of tears.
Bernard de Trevies made this, A.D. 1178.
Now Bernard of the Three-Ways is a man who did something else--he was a
novelist and a poet. A Canon of Maguelonne, gentle and pure of heart, he
wrote the story of 'Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelone,' a charming
monument of the old Languedoc tongue worthy to range alongside with
'Aucassin et Nicolette.' It has been translated into most European
languages, Greek not excepted, and has become a favourite chapbook tale.
It is still read in all cottages of France, sold at all fairs, but sadly
mutilated at each re-edition, and in its chapbook form reduced to a few
pages, which is but a wretched fragment of a very delightful whole. No idea
of its beauty can be obtained without reference to the old editions, where
it occupies a goodly volume.
The story of Pierre de Provence is not one of extraordinary originality,
but its charm lies in its general tone, healthy, pure, gentle, full of the
freshness of chivalry in its first institution, and of religion in its
simplicity. We probably have not got the poetic romance quite in its
original form as it left the hands of Bernard, for Petrarch, whilst a
student at Montpellier, was struck with it, and added some polishing
touches, and it is the version thus improved by his master-hand that is
believed to have come down to us. I shrink from still further condensing a
story spoiled already by condensation, and yet do not like altogether to
pass it over without giving the reader some idea of it.
The story tells of a Peter, son of the Count of Melgueil, who, hearing that
the King of Naples had a daughter of surpassing loveliness, determined
to ride and see her. He had himself accoutred in armour, with silver keys
on his helm, and on his shield; and when he reached Naples jousted in
tournament before the fair princess, whose name was Maguelone, and loved
her well, and she him. But, alas! the king had promised to give her to the
Prince of Carpona in marriage, and as she felt she could not live without
her Pierre, and Peter was quite sure he could not live without her, they
eloped together. When the sun waxed burning hot she became very weary,
and he led her beneath a tree, and she laid her head on his knee and fell
asleep. Then he saw how she had in her bosom a little silken bag, and he
lightly drew it forth and peered within to see what it contained. Then, lo!
he found three rings that he had sent her by her nurse. Afraid of waking
her, by replacing the bag, he laid it beside him on a stone, when down
swooped a raven and carried it off. Peter at once folded his mantle, put it
under the head of the sleeping girl, and ran after the bird, which flew to
the sea and perched on a rock above it. Peter threw a stone at the raven
and made it drop the bag into the water. Then he got a boat, moored hard
by, jumped into the boat and went after the floating bag with the rings.
But wind and waves rose and brushed him out to sea, and carried him across
the Mediterranean to Alexandria, where the Sultan made him his page. In
the meantime the fair Maguelone awoke in the green wood, and finding
herself alone, ran about calling "Pierre! Pierre!" but received no answer.
She spent the night in the forest, and then took the road to Rome, and
encountering a female pilgrim, exchanged clothes with her. Maguelone
pursued her journey, prayed in S. Peter's Church at Rome, unnoticed by her
uncle, who, with great state, passed by her kneeling there, and threw her
alms. Then she went on to Genoa, where she took boat to Aigues Mortes.
Hearing at this place that there was a little island off the coast suitable
for a hermitage, thither she went, and with her jewels she had brought from
Naples built a little church and a hospital, in which she ministered to
sick people. The Countess of Melgueil, hearing of the holy woman, came to
visit her, and won by her sympathy, with many tears told her how she had
lost her dear son Peter, who had gone to Naples, and had not been heard of
since.
One day, a fisherman caught a tunny, and brought it as a present to the
count. When the tunny was opened, in its stomach was found a little bag
that contained three rings. Now, no sooner did the countess see these than
she knew they were her own, which she had given to Pierre, and she hasted
to tell the anchorite on the isle of the wondrous discovery, and to show
her the rings. It need hardly be told that Maguelone also recognised them.
Now the Sultan of Alexandria had become so attached to Peter, that he
treated him as his own son, and finally, at Peter's entreaty, allowed him
to return to Provence, having first extracted from him a promise to come
back to him. Peter carried with him a great treasure in fourteen barrels,
but to hide their contents he filled up the tops with salt. Then he engaged
with a captain of a trader to convey him across to Provence. Now one day
the vessel stayed for water at a little isle, called Sagona, and Peter went
on shore, and the sun being hot, lay down on the grass and fell asleep. A
wind sprang up. The sails were spread. The captain called Peter. The men
ran everywhere searching for him, could not find him, and at length were
reluctantly obliged to sail without him. On reaching Provence the captain
was unwilling to retain the goods of the lost man, and so gave them to the
holy woman who ministered to the sick in the hospital she had built on a
tiny islet off the coast. One day when Maguelone was short of salt she went
to fetch some from the barrels given her by the ship's captain, and to her
amazement found under the salt an incalculable treasure. With this she set
to work to rebuild the church and her hospital.
In the meantime, Peter awoke, and found himself deserted. For some time he
remained in the island, but from want of food and discouragement fell ill,
and would have died had not some fishermen, chancing to come there, taken
him into their boat. They consulted what to do with the sick man, and one
said that they had best take him to Maguelone. On hearing the name Peter
asked what they meant. They told him that this was the name given to a
church and hospital richly built and tended to by a holy woman, on the
coast of Provence. Peter then entreated them to carry him to the place that
bore so fair a name. So he was conveyed, sick and feeble, into the hostel;
but he was so changed with sickness that Maguelone did not recognise him,
and as she wore a veil he could not see her face.
Now Maguelone, whenever she went by his bed heard him sigh, so she stood
still one day, spoke gently to him, and asked what was his trouble. Then he
told her all his story, and how sad his heart was for his dear Maguelone,
whom he had lost, and might never see again. She now knew him, and with
effort constrained her voice to bid him pray to God, with whom all things
are possible. And when she heard him raise his voice in prayer with many
sobs, she could not contain herself, but ran off to the church, and
kneeling before the altar gave way also to tears, but tears of joy mingled
with psalms of thanksgiving. Then she arose, and brought forth her royal
robes, and cast aside those of an anchorite, and bade that Pierre should be
given a bath and be clothed in princely garb. After which he was introduced
into her presence. Of the joy of the recognition, of the restoration of the
lost son to his parents, of the happy wedding, no need that I should tell.
The church and hostel of Maguelone remained ever after as testimony to the
virtues and piety of La Belle Maguelone, its foundress.
Such is the merest and baldest sketch of this graceful tale, told by the
very man who cut the inscription I copied from the door of the church, in
which he served as canon. When Vernon Lee says of Provençal poetry that
adultery--rank adultery was what it lauded, we must not forget that there
is another side to be considered--and that the Provençal poets turned their
pens as well to drawing pure and artless love.
The land and the old church are now the property of a private gentleman,
a M. Fabre, who has a great love for the place. I remember the church,
when I was a child, full of hay and faggots. It is now restored to sacred
uses, but Mass is only said therein once in the year. The proprietor
has built a farmhouse near it, and has moved his children's bodies to
the old cathedral, and purposes to be laid there himself, when his hour
strikes--surrounded by waters: the sea on one side, the great mere of
Maguelonne on the other.