BOURGES.
The siege of Avaricum by Cæsar--The complete subjugation of Gaul--The
statue of the Dying Gaul at Rome--Beauty of Bourges--The cathedral--Not
completed according to design--Defect in height--Strict geometrical
proportion in design not always satisfactory--Necessity of proportion
for acoustics--Domestic architecture in Bourges--The house of Jacques
Coeur--Story of his life--A rainy day--Why Bourges included in this book--A
silver thimble--_Que de singeries faites-vous là, Madeleine?_--Adieu.
Bourges stands in the very forefront of Gaulish history marked by a great
disaster. There, on a little height at the junction of the Yèvre and the
Auron, the gallant Bituriges had their capital, Avaricum. In six campaigns
Cæsar had, as he believed, broken the neck of all resistance, and Gaul was
under the iron heel of Rome. "My aunt Julia," said Cæsar, "is, maternally,
the daughter of kings; paternally--" he passed his fingers through his
curled and scented locks--"paternally, she is descended from the immortal
gods." After that, even barbarians must feel that it was in vain to strive
against a man thus preordained to mastery. Yet they did not see it.
When Julius Cæsar was in Rome, after six years of stubborn conflict, after
incredible suffering and bloodshed, the heart of the people though bowed
down was not broken.
There lived among the Arvernians, in the high mountainland, among the
volcanic peaks of Auvergne, as it is now called, a young chief, whose real
name is not known, but whom history calls Vercingetorix, that is, Head
over a Hundred Tribes. The time was come for an united, determined, and
desperate resistance. He sent messengers throughout Gaul. The downtrodden
inhabitants rose to a man and invested Vercingetorix with the chief
command.
In the year of Rome 702, B.C. 32, Cæsar was suddenly informed in Italy that
his work of six years was threatened with ruin. Most of the Gallic nations,
united under a chieftain hitherto unknown, were rising with one common
impulse, and recommencing war.
Cæsar at once returned to Gaul. He had one quality, rare even amongst the
greatest men, he remained cool amidst the hottest alarms. He was always
quick, never hasty. He placed himself at the head of his troops, and, in
the early part of March, moved to what is now Sens, the very centre of
revolt, and looked round to decide where first to strike.
Vercingetorix from the outset knew that the ill-armed and worse disciplined
Gauls could not cope in the open field with Cæsar and the Roman legions; he
therefore formed a plan of campaign that required great sacrifices on the
side of the Gauls, for the sake of the common safety. No walls, he assured
the confederates, could withstand the skill of the Romans in engineering,
no array maintain itself in the field against their phalanx. But he
reminded them that through the winter and early spring the soil on which
the enemy trod could not furnish him with provision. He must disperse his
troops among the fortresses. Let then, said he, no further attempts be made
to defy the Roman in the open field; let him rather be followed in detail,
and cut off when separated into cantonments, and above all, let the towns
that served him for magazines be destroyed by the hands of the inhabitants
themselves. He recommended in fact the very course pursued more than
eighteen hundred years later by the Russians against the French Cæsar, a
course which proved fatal to him.
The assembled council of Gaulish states assented gallantly to this
proposal. In one day twenty cities of the Bituriges were flaming, and
similar havoc was made throughout the territories of the allies. But when
the fate of Avaricum (Bourges) came to be discussed, the hearts of the
Bituriges failed them. Their deputies knelt to the assembled chiefs and
interceded for the preservation of their beautiful, and as they deemed it,
impregnable city. The council yielded. In vain did Vercingetorix urge them
to carry out their determination without exception. They would surrender
every other city to the flames, but not their loved capital, not Avaricum.
The situation was admirably calculated for defence. It stood on rising
ground, and the only approach to it then was a causeway between the river
and a morass. The garrison laboured night and day to strengthen their
defences with earthworks and with palisades of sharpened stakes. The Romans
at once moved from Sens and surrounded the place. The story of its fall I
will take from the graphic pen of Dean Merivale:--"Whilst the Bituriges
within their city were hard pressed by the machinery which the Roman
engineers directed against their walls, the forces of the proconsul on
their side were harassed by the fatigues of the siege and the scarcity of
provisions. Cæsar is lavish of praise in speaking of the fortitude with
which his soldiers bore their privations; they refused to allow him to
raise the siege, and when he at last led them against the enemy's army, and
finding it too strongly posted for an attack, withdrew them again within
their lines, they submitted to the disappointment, and betook themselves
once more without a murmur to the tedious operations of the blockade.
The skill of the assailants at length triumphed over the bravery of the
defenders. The walls were approached by towers at various points, and
mounds constructed against which the combustible missiles of the besieged
were unavailing. Finally, a desperate sally was repulsed, and then, at last
the constancy of the Bituriges began to fail. Taking advantage of a moment
when the watch on the walls had relaxed its vigilance, Cæsar marshalled his
legions behind his works, and poured them suddenly against the opposing
ramparts. They gained the summit of the walls, which the defenders
abandoned without a blow, rallying, however, in the middle of the town, in
such hasty array as the emergency would allow. A bloody struggle ensued;
both parties were numerous, and the assailants gave no quarter. The
Gauls were routed and exterminated, their women and children mercilessly
slaughtered, and the great central city of Gaul fell into the hands of the
conquerors without affording a single captive for their triumph." After
that the fate of the insurrection was sealed. The war was carried on with
fluctuations of fortune even into an eighth campaign, and then the yoke
of Rome, iron, and doubly weighted with the wrath of the conqueror, was
riveted on to the neck of prostrate Gallia, never again to be shaken off.
[Illustration: A street corner, Bourges.]
Now, day after day at Rome during the winter had I stood before the Dying
Gaul in the Capitoline Museum, that statue of incomparable pathos:--
"He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
From the red gash fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him--he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won."
_Childe Harold._
The statue is not of a Dying Gladiator, but of a Gaulish chief, who has
dealt himself the death-wound rather than fall into servitude to the Roman,
and then has broken his sword.
And, after having looked and dreamed over that figure, could one come to
Bourges and not think of that heroic and fatal struggle?
Bourges was a beautiful city in those times, loved by the Bituriges so that
they could not resolve to destroy it; but oh! how beautiful it is now,
with its quaint Mediæval and Renaissance houses, and above all that most
glorious cathedral, one of the very finest creations of art in the world.
And yet, it is not perfect. The original design was not carried out. The
nave has not the height proposed. Funds failed, and it was finished off
as best might be. It wants about forty-six feet of the height it should
have had, to be in correct proportion. The flying buttresses outside were
designed and executed to carry a vaulting some forty-six feet higher than
the present one, and they are now of no use; they sustain nothing, all
the outward thrust of the central vault is thrown on the second stage of
buttresses. Fine as is the interior, it ought to be finer. The clerestory
windows are dwarfed, and the height of the side aisles is felt to be out
of all proportion to that of the nave. Moreover, there is nothing of the
wonderful skill of design in the apsidal chapels, that is seen at Amiens,
Vezelai, Beauvais, &c. Instead of forming an integral portion of the plan,
they are mere excrescences in the sides of the apse.
However, in spite of defects, partly in design, but mainly through lack of
means to carry it out, the cathedral of Bourges is of singular beauty. In
one point the architect was a greater man than the designers of Amiens and
Cologne. These two cathedrals are in strict proportion in all their parts.
The designer of each, like the architect of York Minster, was a great
man with the compasses. But an architect should be artist as well as
geometrician. I have ever felt in York Minster, in Amiens and Cologne, that
there is a lack of genius, of the human soul in the creation.
There is strict formality, exact rule, that is all. No allowance has been
made for effect of perspective, for the foreshortening to the eye at
distances; there is no poetry in these three cathedrals. The designers drew
them out on paper without having the faculty of seeing them in their minds'
eye rise before them out of the soil. These churches made better sketches
than they do structures. They are in admirable proportion on paper, but
they are out of proportion when seen in stone. Now such architects as the
men who designed Beauvais and Bourges were geniuses. They were not tied
hard and fast by rule of compass. They worked from a definite geometric
plan, but deviated from it where their taste and feeling for beauty taught
them that such deviation was advisable. Now at Beauvais and at Bourges the
exact, proportions have been abandoned. For instance, at Bourges, to be
exact, each of the two side aisles should have been half the width of the
nave. But the architect was perhaps afraid of the great span, perhaps he
dreaded too great formality, and he made the aisle next to the nave about 2
ft. 3 in. less than the width it ought to have had, if in exact proportion.
The outer aisle was given almost, but not quite, the exact proportional
width.
The great defect of our modern architects is that they do not work from a
foundation of geometrical proportion, but design out of their own heads
by eye; we are sometimes distressed at finding that our churches recently
built are bad acoustically. This is very generally due to the fact that
they have been built regardless of geometric proportion.
If Bourges had been carried out as intended, the crown of the vault would
have been exactly seven times half the width of the nave. S. Servin,
Toulouse, has the keystone of the vault exactly five times the half width.
If we desire to have good acoustic qualities in our churches and halls we
must observe some such rule. So with the plan. The length of Autun is seven
times the width of the nave; Beauvais the same, or would have been, had
the nave been completed. Amiens has exactly the same proportion, measured
to the end of the apse. So Noyon. In fact, the Mediæval architects were
careful to build so as never to give even proportions. Twice, four times,
six times, would have had bad acoustic effects. There would have been an
echo.
Of the sculpture on the west façade, the richly, deeply-recessed portals,
I will not speak. That has been sufficiently observed and admired by other
writers. I am not writing a guide-book, and I do not as a rule notice at
any length what may be found in easily-accessible works. Here, as at Rouen,
is a butter tower, so called because built with money paid for indulgence
to be allowed to eat butter in Lent. Does the reader know how strictly the
observance of Lent was enforced down to the Civil Wars in England? I have
gone through some episcopal registers of our English bishops since the
Reformation, and find that in James I.'s time a bishop's licence was
sought to obtain permission to eat meat in Lent. Not only so, but all
schoolmasters, surgeons, and midwives were required to obtain an episcopal
licence before being permitted to practise in the diocese.
In Bourges one feels that one is removed altogether from the influences
that moulded architecture in Provence. There the abundance of Classic
remains affected the minds and formed the taste of the Mediæval builders.
In Central France there were few traces of the Roman conquerors, and Gothic
architecture developed freely according to its own genius. The domestic
architecture is different. We come now to the gables standing over the
street. There are many and charming specimens in Bourges. Among the houses
is that of Cujas, concerning whom some anecdotes have already been told.
Bourges was famous for its University and School of Laws, and Cujas was
invited to a professorship in it. The house is of brick, of the sixteenth
century, and richly adorned. Another interesting house is that of Charles
VII., with a graceful staircase, and an old hall with open fireplace. But
the striking mansion of all is that of Jacques Coeur, the Bourges jeweller,
father of an Archbishop of this his native city. Throughout the house is
introduced his canting device, a human heart and the scallopshell of S.
James. His motto is also graven, "A vaillants coeurs rien impossible."
[Illustration: Part of Jacques Coeur's House.]
I hate doing a thing again and in an inferior manner that has already been
done inimitably; and Madame Parkes-Belloc, with her fresh pen dipped
in sunlight has written about Bourges and Jacques Coeur's house in her
charming book, 'La Belle France,' [1] and I dare not tread after her. So I
simply quote her words--I fear her pleasant book is not much sought after
and read now:--"His dwelling must have fitted Jacques Coeur as its skin
fits an animal. All its quaint architectural corners seem, as it were,
wrinkles and creases, whereby it adapted itself to the nature and genius
of the man. We, in our day, know nothing of such a style of building. If
we want a large house we send for an architect, who submits his plans
to our enlightened judgment; allotting ample stairs, a sufficiency of
best bedrooms, kitchen, butler's pantry, &c. If rather less, then rather
cheaper; and as to making the slightest difference in style on account
of our late pursuits, as whether, for instance, we were a retired
candlestick-maker, or a Lord Chancellor, or a physician, the very idea
would savour of lunacy. Not so Jacques Coeur. This man wished, in dying, to
leave a beautiful shell behind him, so that the passers-by might say: 'Here
lived a great merchant; he had a wife, sons, and a daughter, and numerous
domestics. He liked his money, but loved art more. He kept a negro; he was
pious, also loyal. He didn't mind fighting, if needs must be; but preferred
commerce and politics. He loved Bourges, and Bourges loved him; for he paid
his workmen well.' All this, and more, Jacques Coeur continued to write in
legible characters on the walls of his house, some of it on the outside,
some of it on the inside."
[Footnote 1: Published in 1868.]
He had humour, a quaint conceit, this man of gold and jewelry. He had the
very knocker to his door made to strike upon a _heart_. Under the eaves of
his observatory he had his negro sculptured hugging his money-box, and a
little beyond an angel exhibiting his newly-acquired coat-of-arms. The one
led to the other--the money-box brought on gentility. Hard by is the
shield of an allied commercial family, their coat one of _fleurs-de-lis_
interspersed with woolsacks. The Fuggers of Augsburg, when desiring a coat,
asked Maximilian for lilies--for, said these wealthy spinners--as for the
lilies, "_They_ toil not, neither do they spin." With droll invention
Jacques had one of his fireplaces made like a fortress, with little windows
above, out of which folk are peeping. He had a gift for pungent mottoes.
Here are some he had wrought into the decorations of his house:--
"A close bouche
Il n'entre mouche."
Another is:--
"Entendre, taire,
Dire, et faire,
Est ma joie."
I remember a merchant's house, very sumptuous, at Schaffhausen, on which he
had written this bitter device--"God preserve me from my friends; I will
protect myself from my enemies." Another man altogether from Jacques Coeur.
The ending of this bright, merry, pomp-loving merchant was sad. He fell
into disgrace with his king--he had probably lent him too much money; he
was accused falsely of several crimes--forging money and selling arms to
infidels, and was thrown into prison. The king then seized his wealth, tore
up the bills in his name, and left one of Jacques' sons only a remnant of
his treasure and the house. Jacques Coeur managed to escape from prison,
got to Rome, and was taken into favour by Nicolas V. and Calixtus III., and
was appointed captain of an expedition against the Turks. He is thought to
have been wounded in a skirmish with them, for he is known to have died in
Chios. And so he passed his old age, and laid his bones far from the house
he had built for himself in which to end his days, and was not buried in
the chapel of the cathedral which he had constructed as his mausoleum.
[Illustration: Turret in the Hôtel Lallemand.]
Another very delightful old house in Bourges is the Hôtel Lallemand,
constructed after the great fire of 1487; there is another in the Rue des
Toiles, and another again in the Rue S. Suplice.
[Illustration: Staircase in the Hôtel Lallemand.]
The reader may ask--If you are writing a book on Provence and Languedoc,
why give us Bourges? Bourges, which is in Berry, which is in the very
centre of France? For the same reason that I began with Florence. One does
not drop out of a balloon into Provence, nor ascend out of it by one. One
must stay somewhere in going there, and stay somewhere and see something on
leaving there. And as my stay at Florence led on as a sort of preface to my
flight up and down in Provence, so will this chapter on Bourges serve as an
epilogue. For, in verity, as my encounter with the Jew dealer served me as
an introduction so shall a little incident I met with in Bourges serve me
as an easy mode of making my exit with a bow.
It was raining. It had rained all day. The interior of the cathedral,
dark at all times with its deep-dyed (and dirty) glass, was in darkness,
too deep to see and study much. The gurgoyles were spouting, the eaves
dripping, the gutters running as mountain torrents. However, towards
sunset, the windows of heaven were closed, the rain ceased, and folk who
had been indoors all day came out with umbrellas and pattered and splashed
about.
Now, by some fatality a thimble had been brought down from the roof of one
of the houses by a descending water-spout; perhaps a dragon-gurgoyle had
spat it disdainfully down. How had the thimble got on the roof? That was
the question, not how it got down into the gutter. Had a cunning jackdaw,
as in the 'Gazza di Ladra' carried it off, or had a child tumbled it out of
an attic window on to the leads?
I was not the only person interested in this thimble. There was a young
man, a student, a French exquisite, who also observed it; and I saw him
poking at it in the water with the ferrule of his umbrella. Indeed it
was his behaviour towards the thimble that attracted my attention to it.
Presently he managed to extricate the thimble from the flood, to lodge it
on a paving-stone, but it was slippery and round, and rolled off between
two cobbles. Then he put up his eye-glass and studied it. Was it worth
soiling his fingers over or not? Was it of silver or of brass? He walked
round the thimble, with his eye-glass up, stood astride over the little
torrent that had brought it down, stiffened his back, clapped the umbrella
under his arm, and pursed up his lips to consider. Then he formed his
resolution, stooped, and with the extreme point of his forefinger turned
the thimble about. Then he stood erect again, pulled out a pocket
handkerchief--saw it was of spotless cleanliness, considered that it would
cost him two sous to have it washed if he dirtied it by drying thereon his
forefinger, replaced it, and put his finger up his back under his coat
tails and wiped it on the calico of his waistcoat.
He had made up his mind to have nothing more to do with the thimble, when
along the _trottoïr_ came tripping a pretty damsel, with the purest of
white caps, a sallow face, with fine dark eyes and abundant black hair. She
bore over her shoulder, expanded, a plum-coloured umbrella. It had ceased
raining, but the plum-colour threw out her pleasant face into relief: she
knew that, and tripped on without folding it.
Instantly down bent the student, and, regardless of the dirty water, picked
up the thimble. It slipped from his fingers into the gutter. Boldly he
plunged his hand in, soiling thereby his _manchette_; but he recovered the
trifle. The girl was abreast of him, and had passed before he was prepared.
He now pulled out a dogskin glove and polished the article. It _was_
silver. He affixed it to the end of his little finger and waited his
opportunity.
Three ladies approached. The youth plucked up courage--holding out his
little finger shod with the thimble. It was like Paris and the Three
Goddesses. The ladies looked at him, at his thimble, then at each other,
tossed their heads, and walked on.
Then came a very ugly woman--the exquisite put the thimble resolutely
behind his back.
Next--back, under her plum-coloured umbrella, returned the grisette. At
once the dandy stood forward.
"Mademoiselle, as you passed just now, assuredly you dropped this."
[Illustration: Sculpture over the kitchen entrance at Jacques Coeur's
house.]
"Mais, Monsieur! ce n'est pas possible. Ce n'est pas à moi."
"Pardon, mademoiselle, you dropped it; I saw you. I heard it fall."
"Cependant,--it is not mine."
"Then it is nobody's. I will throw it away."
"Mais, monsieur, it is of silver."
"Take it, mademoiselle, I pray."
She held the little silver thimble between thumb and forefinger, turned it
about, studied it, hesitated, was inclined to take it, but did not wish to
place herself under an obligation to a fop, and a stranger--knitted her
brows--when up came a young workman, with a lead pencil in his hand--in his
blouse.
"Mais! que de singeries faites-vous là, Madeleine?" said he, and
flip!--with his pencil he sent the thimble out from her hand,
flying--neither he, nor the girl, nor I saw whither it went, or where it
fell.
And--just thus stands the author of this little work, offering his trifle
to the gentle and well-disposed reader, who is inclined, may be, to be
pleased with it, and to adopt it. But up comes the envious reviewer, and
with his pen--flip--he sends the poor little article away--away--away, into
the limbo of forgotten books, "que de singeries faites-vous là--avec cette
bagatelle là?"
[Illustration: Jacques Coeur's knocker.]
APPENDIX.
A.--MONUMENTS FROM THE ALYSCAMPS.
1. The inscription to Cornelia, daughter of Marius, is something of a
puzzle. Against its genuineness may be urged that he is represented as
conqueror of the Cimbri, whereas the Cimbri were not defeated till the
following year, near Vercelli. Now it is strange that he should have left
his daughter at Arles instead of moving her into Italy; and it is also odd
that, if she were left there, he should be designated as conqueror of the
Cimbri, whereas in the engagement with the Cimbri he shared the glory with
Catulus; and he alone was victor over the Teutons and Ambrons near Aix.
Moreover, one would have supposed that at Arles he would have been entitled
the conqueror of these latter, the terror of whom had fallen on the
province, and not of the Cimbri who did not menace it.
On the other hand, the inscription is in shockingly bad Latin; Calpurnia
is made conqueror of the Cimbri, not her father, by a grammatical blunder;
and one would suspect a forger would have avoided such a grotesque error,
which is quite in agreement with other blunders made by the sculptors of
monuments in the Alyscamps, who were clearly Gallo-Greeks, and hardly
understood Latin.
Also--and this is remarkable--the name of the girl is Calpurnia; and Caius
Marius was a native of Arpinum, and when this town was taken by the Romans
from the Samnites, in B.C. 188, the franchise was given to the inhabitants,
who were enrolled in the Calpurnian _gens_. Now this is a little fact that
it is most improbable a forger would know--but it quite explains the girl
receiving the name of Calpurnia, if genuine.
2. The Tomb of Julia Tyranna. The inscription runs:--
IVLIÆ . LVC . FILIÆ . TYRANNIÆ .
VIXIT ANN . XX . M . VIII .
QVÆ MORIBVS . PARITER . ET .
DISCIPLINA . CETERIS . FEMINIS .
EXEMPLO . FVIT . ANTARCIVS .
NVRVI . LAVRENTIVS . VCXORI .
It was raised to her memory by her father-in-law Antarcius, and by her
husband, Laurentius. The organ is represented with seven pipes.
3.
O DOLOR . QVANTÆ
LACHRIMÆ . FECERE
SEPVLCRVM . IVL . LV
CINÆ . QVÆ . VIXIT . KA
D . RISSIMA . MATRI . FLOS . Æ M.
TATIS . HIQ . IACET . INTVS .
CONDITA . SAXOO . VTINAM .
POSSIT . REPARARI . SPIRITVS . ILLE .
VT . SCIRET . QVANTVS . DOLOR . EST .
QVÆ . VIXIT . ANN . XXVII . M . X . DIE XIII .
IVL . PARTHENOPE . POSVIT . INFELIX MATER .
"O Grief! what tears have watered this tomb of Julia Lucina who in life was
very dear to her mother. Carried off in the flower of her age, here she
lies, buried in this marble tomb. Would that her spirit might be restored,
that she might learn how great is my grief. She lived twenty-seven years,
ten months, and thirteen days. Julia Parthenope, her unhappy mother, raised
this."
4.
HYDRIÆ TERTVLLÆ
C . F . CONIVGI . AMANTISSI
MÆ ET AXIÆ OELIANÆ .
FILIÆ DVLCISSIMÆ .
TERENTIVS MVSEVS
HOC SEPVLCRVM
POSVIT .
"Terentius Musæus placed this to his most loving wife, Hydria Tertulla, and
to his most sweet daughter, Axia Oeliana." On this is a child with a cock
in hand, an oblation to the infernal deities.
5.
F . MARIO . MF .
MARINO .
EXS . TESTA MENTO .
Observe in this, as in No. 3, the queer spelling, in both phonetic:--HIQ,
SAXOO, EXS.
6. Here is a Christian inscription:--
INTEGER . ATQVE . PIVS . VITA . ET . CORPORE . PVRVS .
ÆTERNO . HIC . POSITVS . VIVIT . CONCORDIVS . ÆVO .
QVI . TENERIS . PRIMVM . MINISTER . FVLSIT .
IN . ANNIS .
POST . ETIAM . LECTVS . COELESTI . LEGE . SACERDOS
TRIGINTA . ET GEMINOS . DECEM . VIX . REDDIDIT .
ANNOS .
HVNC . CITO . SIDEREAM . RAPTVM . OMNIPOTENTIS .
IN AVLAM
MATER . BLANDA . ET . FRATER . SINE FVNERE
QVÆRVNT .
"Intact and pious, pure in life and body, here lies buried, but eternally
lives Concordius, who in his tender years shone first as a deacon,
afterwards chosen by the celestial law a priest; he lived hardly fifty
years. Transported too soon to the starry hall of the Almighty, his gentle
mother and his brother seek him without bewailing him."
This is on a sarcophagus of white marble with a colonnade carved on the
face, the pillars channeled and spiral. In the centre is Jesus Christ,
seated on a throne, instructing His apostles and a crowd, which is seen
through the arcade, at the right a man, on the left a woman, on the cover
are the twelve apostles with rolled volumes before them. This sarcophagus
belongs to the fourth century.
7.
PAX ÆTERNA
DVLCISSIMÆ . ET . INNOCEN
TISSIM . FILLIÆ . CHRYSOGONE . IV
NIOR . SIRICIO . QVÆ . VIX . ANN . III .
M . II . DIEB . XXVII . VALERIVS . ET . CHRY
SOGONE . PARENTES . FILLIÆ . KARIS
SIMÆ . ET . OMNI . TEMPORE . VI
TÆ . SVE . DESIDERANTISS .
M . A . E .
"Peace eternal to the most sweet and innocent girl, Chrysogone (the
younger) Siricio, who lived three years, three months, and twenty-seven
days. Valerius and Chrysogone, her parents, raised this monument to their
most dear daughter, whom they will regret all their lives."
The bones were found in a leaden coffin enclosed in one of stone. The body
of the little Chrysogone had been enveloped in a rich brocade of gold
thread and silk.
8. A curious column dedicated by the good people of Arles to Flavius
Valerius Constantinus (Constantine the Great), son of Constantius, long
served the boatmen on the Rhone to fasten their vessels to, and it is sadly
furrowed by the chains and cords so employed. It bears the inscription:--
IMP . CÆS . FL . VAL . CONSTANTINO
P . F . AVG . DIVI CONSTANTI .
AVG . RII . FILIO .
Constantius Chorus also bore the names of Flavius Valerius.
B.--THE CAMPAIGN OF MARIUS.
For determining this the following points must be settled:--
I. _Where was his camp?_
To fix the position of his camp we must see where he could best watch the
barbarians cross the Rhone, in such a place as he would have his rear
covered, and where he could keep open his communications with Rome, and
receive both reinforcements and victuals.
Now there is absolutely no point that answers these requirements like S.
Gabriel. It was certain that the barbarians would not cross at Arles, for
they could not advance thence south of the chain of Les Alpines, owing to
the lagoons and morasses, and the desert of the Great Crau. They must cross
below Avignon and at or above Tarascon. Now, as they would almost certainly
march along the high table-land that extends from Montpellier by Nimes to
Beaucaire, and not wade through the marshes below these hills, they would
arrive with dry feet at Beaucaire, and there, naturally would cross and
follow up the valley of the Durance. S. Gabriel was a natural watch-tower,
whence Marius could observe them. It is an ancient Roman settlement.
Numerous Roman remains have been found there. Marius had but to mount the
heights behind the little town, and he commanded all the country to the
north-west and south for a vast distance. Then, again, by means of his
canal, connecting the lagoons, he was able to bring ships with supplies
under his walls. His canal opened out of the Etang de Galéjon, with a
station at Fos, not at the exact entrance of the canal, which was low and
marshy, but at the entrance of the channel of Martigues that opens into
the Etang de Berre. Through Galéjon it ran north, cutting through a chain
of lagoons, passed under Mont Majeur to S. Gabriel, and there probably
received the waters, the overspill of the Durance, above Château Renard.
Plutarch says that it was connected with the Rhone, but this was probably
an error. Its course to S. Gabriel remained in use and falling into
decay in the Middle Ages as the Canal des Lonnes. Between S. Gabriel and
the Etang de Galéjon it could also be traced, and bore the name of Le
Vigueirat. This canal of Marius was perfectly protected from the barbarians
by the morasses that intervened between it and the Rhone.
II. _To determine his march._
The old pre-Roman road from Nimes to Aix certainly followed the high and
dry ground to Tarascon, thence traced up the valley of the Durance. It
could no longer follow the high ground, as that is broken into limestone
peaks, but it followed up the river below them, carried above the rubble
of the Durance. The first station after Tarascon was Glanum, now S. Remi.
Then it went to Orgon, where it touched the Durance for the first time, and
whence branched the roads to Italy--one by Mont Genèvre, the other by Aix
and the coast. I suppose that Marius, following the barbarians, he on the
heights, they in the valley, observed the direction they took to right or
to left, from the precipitous crags of Orgon. It must be remembered that
Marius had an army made up of demoralised soldiers, who had escaped from
defeat by the barbarians, and of raw levies, and all were in deadly fear of
their savage foes, so that he dare not bring them to a pitched battle till
they had become accustomed to the sight of the Teutons and Ambrons, and
were themselves impatient to come to blows with them.
The host of invaders turned south towards Aix. Marius pursued: there can,
I think, be little question that he pursued the same tactics, exchanging a
sandstone range for one of limestone, and following them steadily step by
step, keeping the heights.
Now, if the camp of Marius was at S. Gabriel, and if the Teutons marched up
the Durance valley to Orgon, and then turned to Aix, then, it seemed to me,
on the spot, that no one save an idiot in command of the Roman soldiers
could have done anything else than strike for the sandstone ridge and march
along that, still observing the enemy.
Another theory relative to the Roman road is that it ran south of the chain
of Les Alpines. This would not matter for the course of Marius, but would
explain the fact of the monument of Marius being found at Les Baux; and Les
Baux would then be the cliff whence he watched the march of the barbarians.
III. _To determine the position of the battles._
Plutarch does not distinguish between sites. He says that there were two
battles separated from one another by two days, and that in the first
Marius defeated the Ambrons. In the second he defeated the Teutons. He
leaves us to infer that both battles were fought on the same field. But
there are difficulties in supposing this.
1. The field of Pourrières does not answer the description of the first
battle site; it does that of the second.
2. The Ambrons alone were engaged in the first battle, and no Teutons came
to their help. We may therefore fairly suppose that the two great bodies
of barbarian invaders had separated. 3. There was a very tempting bait,
Marseilles lying to the south, inviting attack and pillage.
Following M. Gilles in his monograph on the campaign of Marius, I believe
that the first battle was fought at Les Milles, the first station out of
Aix on the Marseilles road, and that the Ambrons had parted company with
the Teutons so as to try their luck with Marseilles, or perhaps only so as
to ravage the coast, if they could make no impression on a walled city.
Now, the sandstone ridge along which Marius and his army were marching,
as I suppose, ends abruptly above Les Milles. Below flows the river Are,
making a loop in which is a rich green meadow, and under the hill ooze
out countless rills of water. Indeed, the bottom of the hill is dense
with irises loving the slushy percolated soil. There is no water on the
sandstone heights. Here, if I am right, Marius came out and saw the Ambrons
below, and wanted to form his camp, but was deterred by an engagement being
begun by the water-carriers of the camp going down to the river and springs
with their pails, and being attacked by the Ambrons. Aix lies away to the
north in a broad basin, and at some little distance, two kilos., from the
river. The battle could not have happened there. There is no other place
save Les Milles where we have hill, river, green plain and springs
together, as in Plutarch's narrative. Let us then suppose that Marius
fought the first battle at Les Milles and there defeated the Ambrons. Those
not slain would fly along the Aurelian road that leads from Aix through
the plain of Pourrières, crosses a low _col_, and enters the valley of the
Argens, and leads to Fréjus, where I suppose Teutons and Ambrons designed
to meet again, and pursue their course westward together. In the meantime
the Teutons had been advancing up the Are valley along the Aurelian way.
A mile and a half out of Aix they reached the Are, five miles above Les
Milles, and thence followed up the river for three miles, when they left
it. Their road now lay due east before them, across the almost level plain
of Pourrières, below the limestone precipice to the north of Mont Victoire.
But there is a curious formation here. South of Mont Victoire is a
semicircular sandstone chain, inferior in height, precipitous towards the
plain, called Le Cengle, "the Belt," dying into the limestone mountain at
the point where the latter attains its greatest altitude, above the village
of Puyloubier. This sandstone girdle slopes easily inward to the precipice
of Mont Victoire, and its rills flow together into a little stream that
reaches the Are at the point where the Aurelian road left it, _i.e._ seven
and a half miles from Aix.
M. Gilles supposes that Marius followed on the heels of the flying Ambrons
along the Aurelian way, and that he detached Marcellus at this point to go
up this little stream behind the Cengle and come out farther east so as to
gain Pain de Munition.
I do not think this is tenable, for there is a long tract of bare
hill-slope between the extremity of the Cingle and the conical fortified
hill of Pain de Munition, and even if Marcellus were concealed whilst
ascending this little lateral valley, he would emerge in full view of
the barbarians for the last five or six miles of his march. My belief is
that Marcellus was despatched up the valley of the Infernet, behind Mont
Victoire, by which means his march would be concealed throughout, nor would
it be much longer.
Also, I do not think that Marius pursued the Teutons the whole way along
the road. According to Plutarch's account, the second time he came on them
so as to cause them surprise. Again, if he had pursued a certain plan up
to the first engagement, and it had succeeded, it is likely that he would
follow the same plan up to the second and final engagement. Now hitherto he
had kept to high ground always to the south of the advancing horde. From
Les Milles he very probably, as I think, only followed the traces of the
flying Ambrons along the road till he struck the Are in the open plain of
Pourrières, and then at once crossed to the south bank of the river, and
marched along on ground that slopes up to the south, so that he had the
river between him and the enemy. If, as is probable, this hill-slope, along
which the rail now runs, was then, more than now, dense with broom and
pine, his march would not be seen by the enemy. And so I conclude Marius by
a forced march reached Trets. Then, as I have said in my text, he had the
enemy in a trap. Behind them was the fortified camp of Pain de Munition
into which he had thrown Marcellus, and behind him he had the chain of Mont
Aurélien and Mont Olympe, with another fortified camp. Between him and the
enemy was a slope, and this was cut by streams that had torn their way
through a friable marly soil. Moreover, he had a natural screen of rock
between him and the enemy, with the low face towards him, and an easy slope
towards the barbarians.
The actual site of the camp of the Teutons is fixed without very much
doubt. They would certainly camp in the first available situation near
water. Now they had been marching for five miles without water, and on
reaching the Are at the station Tegulata, they found an admirable site,
three tofts of dry level sandstone apparently made for their purpose.
Moreover, opposite them is the ruin of the monument of Marius. About the
ruin there might have been doubts whether it was Roman, and whether it
referred to the victory, but for the discovery there of the statue of Venus
Victrix, which sets that question at rest for ever.
M. Gilles supposes that the battle was fought along the road, when the
Teutons saw Marius overtake them in pursuit, and that it began at a point
about a mile due west, at Le Logis Neuf. If it had been so, then surely the
monument would have been on the west side of Tegulata, and north of the
Are. The tradition that it raged from north to south between the bridge
and Trets is only of value from its being based on the masses of weapons,
bronze and flint, found on the south side of the river, and not on the
north.
There is something too to be said for what common sense would point out.
Standing on the red sandstone hill above Les Milles, and looking at Aix,
and away east, one tries to imagine the barbarian hordes marching along
the Aurelian way; and then one asks, "Now had I to fight them, what would
I do?" The answer I gave to myself was, "Common sense bids me make with
forced marches away to Trets, keeping my flank protected by the river, and
surprise them again." I am not a general--but it appeared to me that it
would be hard for any one on the spot in the position of Marius, if he had
his wits about him, not to see that the barbarians had given him a splendid
chance, and that he must catch it, and take them unawares when they had
stepped into his net.
C.--THE UTRICULARES.
There are twenty-three inscriptions relative to the Colleges of Utriculares
in Provence. M. Lenthéric gives five in the appendix to his volume, 'Les
Villes Mortes du Golfe de Lyon,' and nineteen in that to his volume 'Le
Grèce et l'Orient en Provence,' but of these one is from Temesvar in
Hungary.
Then M. Gilles, in his 'Campagne de Marius,' engraves a medal of the Guild
of Utriculares of Cabelio (Cavaillon), which is now in the Cabinet of
Medals at Paris. It was found on the hill-slopes of the Luberon. On the
obverse it bears a representation of an inflated skin of a beast (a calf?);
on the other side the inscription--
_Colle(gium)utri(culariorum) Cab(ellionensis) L(ucius) Valer(ius)
succes(sor)._
I will give a few of the inscriptions on stones.
1. _D. M. G. Paqui, Optati lib(erti) Pardalæ, sextum (viri) Aug(ustalis)
col(oniæ) Ju(liæ) Pat(ernæ) Ar(elatensis) patron(i) ejusdem corpor(is),
item patron(i) fabror(um) naval(ium), utricular(iorum) et centena(riorum)
C. Paquius Epigonus cum liberis suis patrono optime merito._
"To the manes of G. Paquius Pardalas, freedman of Optatus, sevir Augustal
of the Colony of Julia Paterna of Arles, patron of the same body, and also
patron of the shipbuilders, of the utriculares, and of the centenares. C.
Paquius Epigonius and his children to a well-deserving patron."
This was found under the porch of S. Cæsarius at Arles. The Centenarii were
the men who made the patchwork beds that covered towers and walls in war as
a protection against the ram and against fire.
2. _D. M. L(ucio) Secundia eleutheria navicular(io) Arel(atensi) item
sevir(o) Aug(ustali) corpor(ato) c(oloniæ) J(uliæ) P(aternæ) A(relatensis)
secundia Tatiana fil(ia) patri pientissim(o)._
"To the manes of Lucius Secundius Eleutherius, boatman of Arles, and
Augustal sevir, incorporated in the colony of Julia Paterna of Arles.
Secundia Tatiana, his daughter, to the most tender of fathers."
Found on the banks of the Rhone, at Arles.
3. _D. M. M(arco) Junio Messanio, utricul(ario) corp(orato) Arelat(ensi),
ejusd(em) corp(oris) mag(istro) quater, fi(lio), qui vixit ann(os) octo et
viginti menses quinque, dies decem, Junia Valeria._
"To the manes. To Marcus Junius Messianus of the corporation of the
utriculares of Arles, four times president of the same; Junia Valeria to
her son, who died at the age of twenty-eight years, five months, and ten
days."
This is on a stone sarcophagus in the museum at Arles.
4. _M(arco) Frontoni Eupori, sevir(o) Aug(ustali) col(oniæ) Julia(e)
Aug(ustæ) Aquis Sextis, navicular(io) Mar(ino) Are(late) Curat(ori)
ejusd(em) corp(oris) patrono nautar(um) Druen(ticorum) et utricularior(um)
corp(oratorum) Ernaginensium. Julia Nice uxor conjugi carissimo_.
"To Marcus Fronto Eupor, Augustal sevir of the Colony of Julia Augusta
at Aix, mariner of Arles, curator of the said corporation, patron of the
corporations of the mariners of the Durance and of the utriculares of
Ernaginum. Julia Nice to her dearest husband."
Found in the church of S. Gabriel (Ernaginum).
FINIS.