THE WALLS OF CARCASSONNE
Never was there an architectural glory like that of Carcassonne. Most
mediæval fortified bourgs have been transformed out of all semblance to
their former selves, but not so Carcassonne. It lives to-day as in the
past, transformed or restored to be sure, but still the very ideal of a
walled city of the Middle Ages.
The stress and cares of commerce and the super-civilization of these
latter days have built up a new and ugly commercial city beyond the
walls, leaving _La Cité_ a lonely dull place where the very spirit of
mediævalism stalks the streets and passages, and the ghosts of a past
time people the château, the donjon, and the surrounding buildings which
once sheltered counts and prelates and chevaliers and courtly ladies.
The old cathedral, too, dedicated to St. Nazaire, as pure a Gothic gem
as may be found outside Sainte Chapelle in Paris, is as much of the past
as if it existed only in memory, for services are now carried on in a
great, gaunt church in the lower town, leaving this magnificent
structure unpeopled and alone.
Carcassonne, as seen from the low-lying plain of the valley of the Aude,
makes a most charming _motif_ for a picture. In the purple background
are the Pyrenees, setting off the crenelated battlements of walls,
towers and donjon in genuine fairy-land fashion. It is almost too
ethereal to be true, as seen through the dim mist of an early May
morning. "A wonderful diadem of chiselled stone set in the forehead of
the Pyrenees," an imaginative Frenchman called it. It would not be wise
to attempt to improve on this metaphor.
This world's wonder--for it is a world's wonder, though not usually
included in the magic seven--has enchanted author, poet, painter,
historian and architect. Who indeed could help giving it the homage due,
once having read Viollet-le-Duc's description in his "Dictionnaire
Raisonée d'Architecture," or Nadaud's lines beginning:--
"Je n'ai jamais vu Carcassonne."
Five thousand people from all over the world pass its barbican in a
year, and yet how few one recalls among his acquaintances who have ever
been there.
It began to dawn upon the French away back in 1835, at the instigation
of Prosper Merimée, that they had within their frontiers the most
wonderfully impressive walled city still above ground. It was the work
of fifty years to clear its streets and ramparts of a conglomerate mass
of parasite structures which had been built into the old fabric, and to
reconstruct the roofings and copings of walls and houses to an
approximation of what they must once have been.
Carcassonne is not very accessible to the casual tourist to southern
France who thinks to laze away a dull November or January at Pau,
Biarritz, or even on the Riviera. It is not in the least inaccessible,
but it is not on the direct line to anywhere, unless one is en route
from Bordeaux to Marseilles, or is making a Pyrenean trip. At any rate
it is the best value for the money that one will get by going a couple
of hundred kilometres out of his way in the whole circuit of France. By
all means study the map, gentle reader, and see if you can't figure it
out somehow so that you may get to Carcassonne.
Carcassonne, the present city, dates from the days of the good Saint
Louis, but all interest lies with its elder sister, _La Cité_, a bouquet
of walls and towers, just across the eight-hundred-year-old bridge over
the Aude.
Close to the feudal city, across the Pont-Vieux, was the barbican, a
work completed under Saint Louis. It gave immediate access to the city
of antiquity, and defended the approaches to the château after the
manner of an outpost, which it really was. This one learns from the old
plans, but the barbican itself disappeared in 1816.
[Illustration]
Carcassonne was a most effective stronghold and guarded two great routes
which passed directly through it, one the Route de Spain, and the other
running from Toulouse to the Mediterranean, the same that scorching
automobilists "let out" on to-day as they go from one gaming-table at
Monte Carlo to another at Biarritz.
The Romans first made Carcassonne a stronghold; then, from the fifth to
the eighth centuries, came the Visigoths. The Saracens held it for
twenty-five years and their traces are visible to-day. After the
Saracens it came to Charlemagne, and at his death to the Vicomtes de
Carcassonne, independent masters of a neighbouring region, who owed
allegiance to nobody. This was the commencement of the French dynasty of
Trencavel, and the early years of the eleventh century saw the court of
Carcassonne brilliant with troubadours, minstrels and _Cours d'Amour_.
The _Cours d'Amour_ of Adelaide, wife of Roger Trencavel, and niece of
the king of France, were famous throughout the Midi. The followers in
her train--minstrels, troubadours and lords and ladies--were many, and
no one knew or heard of the fair chatelaine of Carcassonne without being
attracted to her.
Simon de Montfort pillaged Carcassonne when raiding the country round
about, but meanwhile the old _Cité_ was growing in strength and
importance, and many were the sieges it underwent which had no effect
whatever on its walls of stone. All epochs are writ large in this
monument of mediævalism. Until the conquest of Roussillon, Carcassonne's
fortress held its proud position as a frontier stronghold; then, during
long centuries, it was all but abandoned, and the modern city grew and
prospered in a matter-of-fact way, though never approaching in the least
detail the architectural magnificence of its hill-top sister.
The military arts of the Middle Ages are as well exemplified at
Carcassonne as can anywhere be seen out of books and engravings. The
entrance is strongly protected by many twistings and turnings of walled
alleys, producing a veritable maze. The Porte d'Aude is the chief
entrance, and is accessible only to those on foot. Verily, the walls
seem to close behind the visitor as he makes his way to the topmost
height, up the narrow cobble-paved lanes. Four great gates, one within
another, and four walls have to be passed before one is properly within
the outer defences. To enter the _Cité_ there is yet another encircling
wall to be passed.
Carcassonne is practically a double fortress; the distance around the
outer walls is a kilometre and a half and the inner wall is a full
kilometre in circumference. Between these fortifying ramparts unroll
the narrow ribbons of roadway which a foe would find impossible to pass.
[Illustration: _The Walls of Carcassonne_]
Finally, within the last line of defence, on the tiny wall-surrounded
plateau, rises the old Château de Trencavel, its high coiffed towers
rising into the azure sky of the Midi in most spectacular fashion. On
the crest of the inner wall is a little footpath, known in warlike times
as the _chemin de ronde_, punctuated by forty-eight towers. From such an
unobstructed balcony a marvellous surrounding panorama unrolls itself;
at one's feet lie the plain and the river; further off can be seen the
mountains and sometimes the silver haze shimmering over the
Mediterranean fifty miles away. Centuries of civilization are at one's
hand and within one's view.
A curious tower--one of the forty-eight--spans the two outer walls. It
is known as the Tour l'Évêque and possesses a very beautiful glass
window. Here Viollet-le-Duc established his bureau when engaged on the
reconstruction of this great work.
Almost opposite, quite on the other side of the _Cité_, is the Porte
Narbonnaise, the only way by which a carriage may enter. One rises
gently to the plateau, after first passing this monumental gateway,
which is flanked by two towers. Over the Porte Narbonnaise is a rude
stone figure of Dame Carcas, the titular goddess of the city. Quaint and
curious this figure is, but possessed of absolutely no artistic aspect.
Below it are the simple words, "Sum Carcas."
The Tour Bernard, just to the right of the Porte Narbonnaise, is a
mediæval curiosity. The records tell that it has served as a
chicken-coop, a dog-kennel, a pigeon loft, and as the habitation of the
guardian who had charge of the gate. Here in the walls of this great
tower may still be seen solid stone shot firmly imbedded where they
first struck. The next tower, the Tour de Benazet, was the arsenal, and
the Tour Notre Dame, above the Porte de Rodez, was the scene of more
than one "inquisitorial" burning of Christians.
The second line of defence and its towers is quite as curiously
interesting as the first.
From within, the Porte Narbonnaise was protected in a remarkable manner,
the Château Narbonnaise commanding with its own barbican and walls every
foot of the way from the gate to the château proper. Besides, there were
iron chains stretched across the passage, low vaulted corridors,
wolf-traps (or something very like them) set in the ground, and
loop-holes in the roofs overhead for pouring down boiling oil or melted
lead on the heads of any invaders who might finally have got so far as
this.
The château itself, so safely ensconced within the surrounding walls of
the _Cité_, follows the common feudal usage as to its construction. Its
outer walls are strengthened and defended by a series of turrets, and
contain within a _cour d'honneur_, the place of reunion for the
armour-knights and the contestants in the Courts of Love.
On the ground floor of this dainty bit of mediævalism--which looks
livable even to-day--were the seigneurial apartments, the chapel and
various domestic offices. Beneath were vast stores and magazines. A
smaller courtyard was at the rear, leading to the fencing-school and the
kitchens, two important accessories of a feudal château which seem
always to go side by side.
On the first and second floors were the lodgings of the vicomtes and
their suites. The great donjon contained a circular chamber where were
held great solemnities such as the signing of treaties, marriage acts
and the like. To the west of the _cour d'honneur_ were the barracks of
the garrison. All the paraphernalia and machinery of a great mediæval
court were here perfectly disposed. Verily, no such story-telling feudal
château exists as that of the Château de Narbonnais of the Trencavels in
the old _Cité_ of Carcassonne.
The Place du Château, immediately in front, was a general meeting-place,
while a little to the left in a smaller square has always been the well
of bubbling spring-water which on more than one occasion saved the
dwellers within from dying of thirst.
Perhaps, as at Pompeii, there are great treasures here still buried
underground, but diligent search has found nothing but a few arrowheads
or spear heads, some pieces of money (money was even coined here) and a
few fragments of broken copper and pottery utensils.
Finally, to sum up the opinion of one and all who have viewed
Carcassonne, there is not a city in all Europe more nearly complete in
ancient constructions, or in better preservation, than this old mediæval
_Cité_. Centuries of history have left indelible records in stone, and
they have been defiled less than in any other mediæval monument of such
a magnitude.
Gustave Nadaud's lines on Carcassonne come very near to being the
finest topographical verses ever penned. Certainly there is no finer
expression of truth and sentiment with regard to any architectural
monument existing than the simple realism of the speech of the old
peasant of Limoux:--
"'I'm sixty years; I'm getting old;
I've done hard work through all my life,
Though yet could never grasp and hold
My heart's desire through all my strife.
I know quite well that here below
All one's desires are granted none;
My wish will ne'er fulfilment know,
I never have seen Carcassonne."
* * * * *
"'They say that all the days are there
As Sunday is throughout the week:
New dress, and robes all white and fair
Unending holidays bespeak.'
* * * * *
"'O! God, O! God, O! pardon me,
If this my prayer should'st Thou offend!
Things still too great for us we'd see
In youth or near one's long life end.
My wife once and my son Aignan,
As far have travelled as Narbonne,
My grandson has seen Perpignan,
But I have not seen Carcassonne.'"
What emotion, what devotion these lines express, and what a picture they
paint of the simple faiths and hopes of man. He never did see
Carcassonne, this old peasant of Limoux; the following lines tell why:--
"Thus did complain once near Limoux
A peasant hard bowed down with age.
I said to him, 'My friend, we'll go
Together on this pilgrimage.'
We started with the morning tide;
But God forgive. We'd hardly gone
Our road half over, ere he died.
He never did see Carcassonne."
In August, 1898, a great fête and illumination was given in the old
_Cité de Carcassonne_. All the illustrious Languedoçians alive, it would
seem, were there, including the _Cadets de Gascogne_, among them Armand
Sylvestre, D'Esparbès, Jean Rameau, Emil Pouvillon, Benjamin Constant,
Eugène Falguière, Mercier, Jean-Paul Laurens, et als.
All the artifice of the modern pyrotechnist made of the old city, at
night, a reproduction of what it must have been in times of war and
stress. It was the most splendid fireworks exhibition the world has seen
since Nero fiddled away at burning Rome. "_La Cité Rouge_," Sylvestre
called it. "_Oh, l'impression inoubliable! Oh! le splendide tableau! It
was so perfectly beautiful, so completely magnificent! I have seen the
Kremlin thus illuminated; I have seen old Nuremberg under the same
conditions, but I declare upon my honour never have I seen so beautiful
a sight as the illuminations of Carcassonne."_
One view of the _Cité_ not often had is from the Montagne Noire, where,
from its supreme height of twelve hundred metres (the Pic de Nore) there
is to be seen such a bird's-eye view as was never conceived by the
imagination. On the horizon are the blue peaks of the Pyrenees cutting
the sky with astonishing clearness; to the eastward is the
Mediterranean; and northwards are the Cevennes; while immediately below
is a wide-spread plain peopled here and there with tiny villages and
farms all clustering around the solid walls of Carcassonne--the _Ville_
of to-day and the _Cité_ of the past.
Over the blue hills, southward from Carcassonne, lies Limoux. Limoux is
famous for three things, its twelfth-century church, its
fifteenth-century bridge and its "_blanquette de Limoux_," less ancient,
but quite as enduring.
If one's hunger is ripe, he samples the last first, at the table d'hôte
at the Hotel du Pigeon. "Blanquette de Limoux" is simply an ordinarily
good white, sparkling wine, no better than Saumur, but much better than
the hocks which have lately become popular in England, and much, much
better than American champagne. The town itself is charming, and the
immediate environs, the peasants' cottages and the vineyards, recall
those verses of Nadaud's about that old son of the soil who prayed each
year that he might make the journey over the hills to Carcassonne (it is
only twenty-four kilometres) and refresh his old eyes with a sight of
that glorious mediæval monument.
North of Carcassonne, between the city and the peak of the Montagne
Noire, is the old château of Lastours, a ruined glory of the days when
only a hill-top situation and heavy walls meant safety and long life.