_Aix_
The rain began to fall as I sat outside the inn at Porcieux, and by
the time I reached Trets I was wet through. So I went to bed in an inn
until my clothes should be dry, and greatly daring ordered a cup of
tea. When it came it was of a pale straw colour, and its flavour would
not have satisfied the connoisseurs of Mincing Lane. But it was tea,
with the astringent quality possessed by that beverage alone among all
infusions of herbs or berries. Wine is one of the gifts of God that in
this drab world one may be thankful for, but as a beverage it palls. Of
all the many drinks I enjoyed in my travels in Provence I think that
cup of indifferent tea stands out as the most refreshing.
My clothes were brought up to me in an hour or two's time almost as
wet as ever, and I put them on and went down into the kitchen to
dry them myself. There was an enormous open hearth, but very little
fire on it; but they threw on bundles of sticks, and very soon there
was a hot fire. The master of the inn, his wife and daughters, the
cook in his white cap and apron, who had just come in to begin his
evening's work, and one or two maids, all took the most serious and
sympathetic interest in the process. I hung my coat on the back of a
chair, which I placed on the hearth itself, and stood by the fire,
turning to it first one side and then the other, enveloped in a cloud
of steam from my sopping flannel trousers. I should have thought that
most people under the necessity of drying their clothes would have
done so something after this fashion, but to them it seemed to show
an ingenious originality, and people were summoned from tables in the
_café_ to stand at the kitchen door and see the remarkable sight. When
I was fairly dry we all drank wine together, after which we shook hands
and I went out to see the town, leaving behind me, by all tokens, an
agreeable memory.
Trets is very old, and has the appearance of being uncared for. One
is so accustomed, in France, to seeing remains of historic interest
cleaned and furbished up and saved from further decay, that these
ruinous gateways and towers and fortifications, and narrow untidy
streets with decayed-looking houses lining them, strike a dismal note.
The church is partly of the eleventh century, very massive and very
dark inside, and has an unfinished tower that adds to the general
appearance of decay. Perhaps the rain, which had begun to fall again,
had something to do with the impression that the place made upon me; I
was glad enough to get away from it and take the train to Aix.
I dined for a franc at Gardanne, and reached Aix after dark in renewed
torrents of rain. But I had something to look forward to--an hotel that
I knew, which would provide a hot bath, and a bag of clothes waiting
for me. I had been on the road for nine days, and was ready for a
little ordinary comfort.
It was dull and cold the next morning, and Aix is a city that has
provided itself against heat. Its fine broad central boulevard, the
Cours Mirabeau, is shaded by a double avenue of planes, which must be
among the largest to be found even in this land of planes. The Place de
la Rotonde, at one end of it, has an elaborate system of fountains, and
there are three other fountains in the middle of the boulevard itself,
one of which is fed by a hot spring. The shade of the giant trees and
the plash of the water must be pleasant enough in hot weather, but the
bare branches conveyed none of the charm that their foliage would give
later on, and Aix seemed to me a little cheerless, though I hasten to
say that that is not its true character.
Aix rejoices in the name of "The French Athens." It has always been
learned, classical, and aristocratic. The streets are lined with
the fine hotels of the Provençal _noblesse_, some of which are still
occupied by families whose roots strike far back into history. Many of
them are said to contain rare treasures of art, hidden from the public
gaze in proud seclusion, and for the most part unknown to the world.
These things are not for the wayfarer to see, but I think that if I had
read M. Paul Mariéton's charming book, "La Terre Provençal," before my
walk in Provence instead of after, I should have made an attempt to see
some of them.
"In Aix," he writes, "you will find masterpieces in rooms scarcely
furnished, mansions mouldering to decay, with staircases of honour
bare and cold leading to garden courts uncultivated--unless a few
vegetables for the pot are grown between staves in wine casks.
"An undoubted masterpiece, in a mansion neither cold nor bare, but
full of laughter and gaiety, is the portrait of Rubens by Vandyke,
which the master presented to his friend Peiresc at Antwerp. The
existence of this page of genius, the most significant, it seems to
me, of the great painter's work, is not suspected by the critics, and
scarcely known except to a few amateurs."
In another vast Louis XIV hotel, M. Mariéton mentions a Teniers, two
Van Eycks, a Vanloo, a Hobbema, and a Raphael; in another, a superb
ivory Christ attributed to Cellini. And he speaks of the store of
historic documents, still unpublished, to be found in these ancient
houses.
A wandering Englishman might possibly receive a welcome in some of
these houses because of his nationality. Aix used to be a favourite
place of residence for English people of rank and wealth. In the
cathedral is a memorial tablet which I find inscribed in a guide-book
as that of the wife of "sir Dolben, baronnet d'Angleterre," and of his
three children, who died, the first aged seven years, the second seven
days, and the third seven hours; and there is another to "sir Webb,
baronnet anglais."
M. Louis de Laincel wrote thirty years ago of his childhood's memories
of a very rich Englishwoman, "my lady Russel."
"This lady had the generous habit of sending magnificent presents to
all the children of her acquaintance on New Year's Day. Dieu! what joy
for the children, when the lackey of mylady Russel rang at the door of
the house, carrying on his arm an enormous basket full of presents!
What bonbons, and what delightful toys! Bonne lady!"[7]
This was in the twenties and thirties of the nineteenth century, but
it is quite likely that in this country of long memories the tradition
of English generosity still remains.
But there is plenty to see in Aix without invading privacies. The city
itself I found not very attractive, partly for the reasons I have
already given. But it is lacking in the pleasant public gardens which
make so many French towns places of grateful memory: there is only
one, rather small and uninteresting, on the outskirts. Perhaps it was
the society of Aix that attracted our forbears; otherwise one would
have expected them to prefer Avignon, or Nîmes or Arles, of the inland
cities of southern France.
The large church of St. Madeleine is of the early eighteenth century,
with a rather clumsy imitation Renaissance façade of the year 1860. It
faces the Place des Prêcheurs, which opens out into the larger Place du
Palais, on the west side of which is the fine Palais de Justice, and
behind it the heavy ancient prison. A busy market was going on in this
open space, and people were crowding in and out of the church for the
Thursday's Mass.
It was being sung at a side altar. From the stacks of chairs by the
west door those who entered would take one, slipping the necessary
_sous_ into the hand of the old woman in charge of them, and put
it down in the most convenient place available within view of the
ceremony. The organist sat at a harmonium to the left of the altar,
with his choir boys about him and the congregation almost jostling
his elbows. There was a sort of domesticity about the scene. One felt
that all the people who came into the church so busily and familiarly
thought of it as a place in which to make themselves at home.
There was no such air about the fine cathedral church of St. Saviour.
It gave the impression, more than any French church I have visited,
that one gets in an English cathedral: of a noble monument of the
past, kept in apple-pie order, but with its religious usages somewhat
subordinated to its historic interest. At St. Madeleine, the little
votive tablets and pictures and relics that pious souls have brought to
their favourite altars for years past are stuck all over the walls of
the chapels in great profusion, and with no particular regard to order.
The cathedral is not without them, but they are confined severely to
the neat oval tablet with a gilt frame and gold lettering on a blue or
red ground, and they are disposed upon the walls or over the arches
in austere devices. And there is none of the tawdriness about the
altars that belongs to churches in which people make themselves at
home. Indeed, the high altar, and the choir, might belong to a stately
Anglican cathedral, with which the common people have about as much to
do as with the furnishing of the Deanery.
This cathedral church of St. Saviour is full of happy surprises. Its
component parts have been built in widely different periods, but it
has "come together" in the most satisfactory way, and its variety is
only equalled by its beauty. The first surprise, upon entrance, is the
magnificent octagonal Baptistery. It is said to have been originally
a Temple of Apollo, and the eight monolithic columns that support the
modern cupola are of the Roman period. Two are of granite, and the rest
of porphyry, but the bases and the delicately carved capitals are of
white marble. The effect of the whole structure is exquisite; it can be
seen from different parts of the cathedral through intervening arches,
and adds enormously to the charm of the building.
The Baptistery is to the south of the aisle that was the original
church. This aisle was consecrated in 1103. The present nave, with the
choir slightly out of axis, and the north aisle, were begun at the end
of the thirteenth century and not finished until the sixteenth. The
central nave is enclosed by walls almost entirely solid, and the effect
of the narrow openings cut through them, with glimpses into the side
aisles, is singularly pleasing.
The long rows of carved stalls on either side of the choir are
surmounted by some very fine tapestries. The design is attributed
to Quentin Matsy's, and although the guide-books call them the
"Cantorbéry" tapestry, they state that they came from our St. Paul's
Cathedral and were bought in Paris in the year 1656 for twelve hundred
crowns. But Dr. Montagu Rhodes James, Provost of King's College,[8]
investigated the whole question some years ago, and read a paper before
the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, from which it appears that there
is no foundation for the connection with St. Paul's. Nor does he say
anything about Quentin Matsy's, though the tapestries are undoubtedly
Flemish, and of his date.
In the Inventory of Christchurch, Canterbury, taken in 1540, after the
suppression of the monastery, is the entry "Item one faire new hanging
of riche tapestrie con(taining) vj peces of the story of Christ and our
Lady." Three of them were the gift of a prior, Thomas Goldston, whose
device appears in the border, and three of Richard Dering, cellarer;
and on the border is part of an inscription, of which the beginning
is lost: _celarius me fieri fecit anno domini millesimo quingentesimo
undecimo_; ... the cellarer had me made A.D. 1511.
So there is no doubt about it. These fine tapestries hung in the choir
of Canterbury Cathedral for at least a hundred and thirty years, and
then they were sold and taken to Aix, where part of them hang in the
choir and part in the Archbishop's Palace. They have been a good deal
cut about, and Dr. James thinks there must originally have been five
scenes to a piece, which would give thirty instead of the twenty-six
now to be seen.
Katharine of Aragon is said, but not by Dr. James, to be represented
among the figures in the "Descent from the Cross," and there is a whole
bevy of fair Englishwomen in the first panel of all, which represents
"The Birth of the Virgin." They are portraits of ladies of the English
court, and might be beautiful English girls of today, so lifelike and
characteristic are they; some of them with the sweetest young faces
of a type that is as well known now as it apparently was four hundred
years ago.
I tried to get photographs of at least some of this delightful work in
Aix, but without success. There are postcards of the whole series, but
they are evidently from drawings and not photographs of the original.
In that charming picture of the English girls the faces lose most of
their character and half their beauty. Let nobody who may happen to
receive one of these postcards imagine that it gives a satisfactory
reproduction of the original.[9]
[Illustration: THE CANTERBURY TAPESTRY]
[Illustration: THE FAMOUS "TARASQUE"
_Page 108_]
Behind the high altar is the Chapel of St. Mitre. The life of this
saint is pictured in many of its episodes in a curious painting of the
sixteenth century which is to be seen there. His end was remarkable.
He was beheaded but rose to his feet, picked up his head, and carried
it more than a thousand paces to this very spot. You may see him
approaching the cathedral, his head in his hands, and the bishop with
his attendant clergy waiting for him at the door. And in the centre of
the composition he is represented, still with his head in his hands,
with many people on their knees around him, including the whole family
of the pious Jacques de la Roque, who did not happen to have been
present at the time, but who gave the picture.
St. Mitre's tomb is upheld by two columns of soft stone, from which is
said to exude moisture that cures blindness. There is a little hole in
the right hand pillar in which the sweating is supposed to show itself,
and during the octave of the saint many people come to do him honour
and to anoint their eyes from the pillar.
In the Chapelle de l'Université in the north aisle is a moving
representation of St. Martha and the Dragon, the famous "Tarasque,"
from which she freed the stricken country. The bull's head of this
curious monster wears an expression of mildness and mournful surprise,
as if it is wondering what it has done to make itself so disliked. It
seems to be saying: "I was made like this; I can't help it; I have only
followed the dictates of my nature." The tradition of the Tarasque is
all over Provence, and as most of the early Christian legends are based
upon Roman happenings it is probable that the dragon stands for the
scourge of invasion by the barbarians, and the various rescuing saints
for Marius and his Romans.
The triptych, called "Le Buisson Ardent," famous since it was exhibited
in the great exhibition of "Primtifs" in the Louvre, in 1904, hangs on
a wall of the nave. It is kept closed, but a few _centimes_ will unlock
it, and also uncover the beautiful carving of the west doors.
This very fine picture is by Nicolas Froment, a fifteenth century
painter from Avignon. It has been attributed to King René, but skilful
as that versatile amateur was he could never have painted anything half
so beautiful. The central picture, with its exquisite and wonderfully
preserved gold border, represents the Virgin and the Holy Child seated
upon a great mass of foliage, from which spring little flickering
flames. Beneath them is an angel appearing to Moses, who is struck
with astonishment and is taking off his shoe. A flock of sheep and
goats is pasturing between them, and Moses's dog, resting at his feet,
turns his head to the angel with a look of interest and watchfulness.
Behind is a rich Provençal landscape, with the Rhône running through
it. It is a delicious picture, both in design and colouring.
The side panels contain portraits of King René, and of his second
wife, Jeanne de Laval, kneeling--a panel to each. Above the king stand
Saints Madeleine, Antoine, and Maurice, above the queen Saints Nicolas,
Catharine and John, all of them evidently contemporary portraits. The
old king, whose many trials and happy disposition, as well as his
love for Provence, have preserved his memory as that of few kings has
been preserved, is shown to us here as realistically as if we could
look in on him in the flesh. It is a serious moment with him, and his
mouth is set tightly above the jutting double chin. But it is not the
seriousness of austerity. When he rises from his knees his face will
break out into smiles, and he will have much to say about the details
of the ceremony at which he has just assisted. For he was well versed
in such matters, and a patron of all the arts besides.
He was like a monarch out or a book, this good King René; and he has
been put into at least one famous book, though not without a touch of
caricature. In "Anne of Geierstein," Sir Walter Scott describes him
thus:
"René was a prince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the
fine arts, which he carried to extremity, and with a degree of good
humour, which never permitted him to repine at fortune, but rendered
its possessor happy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died
of despair. This _insouciant_, light-tempered, gay and thoughtless
disposition conducted René, free from all the passions which embitter
life, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domestic losses made
no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerful old monarch.
Most of his children had died young; René took it not to heart. His
daughter Margaret's marriage with the powerful Henry (VI) of England
was considered a connection above the fortunes of the King of the
Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of René deriving any splendour
from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes of his daughter,
and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supply her ransom....
Among all his distresses, René feasted and received guests, danced,
sang, composed poetry, used the pencil or brush with no small skill,
devised and conducted festivals and processions, studied to promote
the mirth and good humour of his subjects."
[Illustration: LE BUISSON ARDENT]
[Illustration: PORTE D'EYGUIÈRES
_Page 128_]
Of his genuine skill with the brush there is a most pleasing example
preserved in the Bibliothèque Méjane at Aix--a Book of Hours, of which
the initial letters are beautifully illuminated by his hand. There
is also a patent of nobility signed by him in a bold and picturesque
manner. Whether the illuminations are authentic or not--and I have no
reason to throw doubt upon them--René could sign his name, like a king
and an artist.
At the end of the Cours Mirabeau is a large statue of this merry
monarch, of no great artistic value, but showing him holding in his
hand a bunch of Muscat grapes, which he first introduced into Europe.
It is not his least claim to memory.
We have not quite done with the cathedral. The wonderful carving of the
west doors is protected by wooden covers, which have kept them in a
perfect state of preservation. They are of walnut wood, and were done
in 1504, seven years before Richard Dering, the Canterbury cellarer,
gave that commission for the tapestries which now hang near them. In
the lower parts are figures of Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremiah,
each under a rich canopy; and above them are the twelve Sibyls, each
of a different nation and with appropriate symbol. The borders of
fruit and flowers are exquisite. There is hardly a finer piece of
wood-carving on a large scale to be seen anywhere than on these massive
doors, and they and the triptych should on no account be missed by any
one who finds himself in the cathedral.
The portal that enshrines these beautiful doors is of the same date,
and is quite worthy of them. There is a charming figure of the Virgin
and Child on a pedestal between the doors. The lusty, well-grown baby
is held upon his mother's arm, and she looks at him with smiling pride,
as mothers do all the world over.
The cloisters should also be visited, for the sake of the carvings on
the double rows of pillars that hold up the arcading, in which the
sculptors have let themselves loose in all sorts of luxuriant fancies.
They are hardly less interesting than those in the famous cloisters of
St. Trophime at Arles.
Aix is rich in pictures, besides those in the churches. I spent a
pleasant rainy afternoon in the Museum, and found a great deal to
interest me. Not to mention the very fine examples of the "Primitives,"
there are several pictures by Ingres, including the richly coloured
"Jupiter and Thetis," and the very interesting portrait of Granet.
But it was my discovery of Granet himself that gives me my pleasantest
recollection of the Aix Museum. There is a whole room devoted to his
pencil and water-colour drawings, which contains also many of his best
known paintings. His subjects are something of the same as those of
Wilkie, who was his contemporary, but in his composition and beautiful
effects of lighting he seems to me an incomparably greater artist.
He was a native of Aix, and died there in 1849. I was told by an old
gossip at Avignon that he was servant in the house of a rich amateur
painter, and that he used to lock himself into his garret, whenever
he had a moment to himself, to make his own experiments. One day his
master looked through the keyhole and saw what he was doing. He might,
said my gossip, have been struck with jealousy. But he was of the
_noblesse_. He was struck instead with admiration of the work that he
beheld--probably after having knocked at the door--, greeted the valet
as _his_ master, and assisted him to make his career.
The late afternoon was fine. I walked all about the town, visited the
remaining churches, and paid due attention to other objects of interest.
Among the curiosities of Aix is the monument of Joseph Sec, which the
owner of that harmonious name caused to be erected on the edge of his
garden in 1792. It faces the street, and bears the inscription:
Venez, habitants de la terre,
Nations, écoutez la loi!
It includes the figures of Themis and Moses, and among other symbols
two bas-reliefs of banknotes for a hundred and two thousand francs.
The whole erection is rather absurd, although it was the work of the
sculptor Chastel. But probably Joseph Sec was one of those patrons of
the arts who know what they want and see that they get it. I have not
the smallest doubt that Chastel, who was a sculptor of merit, heard
from him the phrase: "I pay the piper, and it is only fair that I
should call the tune," or its French equivalent.
Joseph Sec called another very curious tune to Chastel, of which M.
Mariéton tells.
He was taken into the deserted garden behind the monument--"the Trianon
of the bourgeois of Aix," he calls it--and into a little Louis XVI
kiosk littered with tools. In it was an old sofa, the seat of which was
lifted for him to see the life-sized figure of a naked man in painted
marble, with a bloodstained scar on his forehead--a dreadful, realistic
representation of a workman who had been killed by a stone falling from
Joseph Sec's monument.
How modern he was, this good bourgeois of Aix, who died over a hundred
years ago! A taste for the arts, and money enough to indulge it! I own
that I should have tried to get a glimpse of this artistic atrocity of
his, if I had known of its existence.