ACROSS THE AGES
"Pas de chantar m'es pres talens,
Farai un vers don sui dolens,
Non serai mais obediens
De Peigtau ni de Lemozi.
Ieu m'en anarai en eyssilh;
Laissarai en guerra mon filh,
E gran paor et en parilh;
E faran li mal siey vozi."
("A desire to sing has seized me,
And I shall sing of that which afflicts me;
I shall no longer be obeyed
By either Poitou or Limousin.
I shall depart into exile;
I shall leave my son behind me in war,
In great fear and peril,
At the mercy of those who wish him ill.")
By WILLIAM IX. COUNT OF POICTIERS
(THE "FIRST TROUBADOUR"). Born 1071.
There is a vast work on Provence by le Sieur Honoré de Bouche, Docteur
en Theologie, A.P.D.S.I., printed at Aix, by Charles David, "printer
to the King, the clergy and the town," MDCLXIV. It is bound in ancient
brown leather;--two majestic volumes which have to be propped up against
something substantial or laid upon a family dining-table in order to
be read in any sort of security. Less serious treatment, such as an
attempt to balance the tomes on the knee between the arms of a chair,
however solid, always results in a temporary eclipse of the student. The
difficulties of acquiring erudition in this case are physical as well
as intellectual. But the dangers of the road are worth braving even if
one does come off with an aching head and some few marks of conflict.
The author, as beseems a doctor in theology, begins the history of his
country from the creation of the world, and goes steadily on with a really
terrible staying power till the reign of Louis XIV., where he is forced
to stop, having arrived at his own times. The height of the volumes is
such that the reader has the sensation (and almost the necessity) of
alternately stretching and collapsing like a telescope in order to read a
page from top to bottom; and this movement seems to emphasise the sense
given by the narrative of journeying through the centuries in company
with the whole brilliant procession of Counts and Kings, rulers and high
sovereigns of Provence.
Roman governors, Pagan Emperors, Christian Emperors, Burgundian and
Visigoth Kings, Ostogoths and Franks, Merovingians, Carlovingians, Kings
of Arles and Burgundy, Kings of Arles "high sovereigns"; Emperors of
the Holy Roman Empire; Counts Proprietary and Hereditary of Arles and
Provence, Counts of Anjou of the 1st Race of the House of France, Counts
of Anjou of the 2nd Race, in the direct line of St. Louis; and finally,
from Louis XI. onwards--Kings of France: the long pageant streams by in
ordered magnificence, picturesque in setting, rich in colour and attire,
with splendid names and sad, splendid destinies.
The Sieur de Bouche heads his first book in the following full-blooded
manner:--
PROVENCE.
"Sous ses premiers et plus anciens maitres depuis la création
du monde jusqu'a á ce qu'elle ait este soumise à la domination
des Romains durant l'espace de 3,927 ans."
This is a mere preliminary, a slight introduction to the body of the work.
The next Book treats of the country under the Romans during 591 years,
from 125 B.C. to 466 A.D. This period is divided into three sections.
I. Provence under the Republic.
II. Provence under the Pagan Emperors.
III. Provence under the Christian Emperors
until the arrival of the Burgundians and Visigoths.
Then comes Provence under the first barbarian kings, Burgundian and
Visigoth.
The period of the Frankish kings is again divided into Sections (and let
no one who has not tackled le Sieur Honoré think lightly of a Section!)
[Illustration: THE CHURCH DOOR, SAINTES MARIES.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
The first Section gives 127 years of Carlovingians till 879, when we
enter upon the important era of the Kings of Arles and Burgundy, and
the beginning of Provence as an independent territory.
Here again we have three Sections:--
Kings of Arles of the 1st Race,
Kings of Arles of the 2nd Race,
Kings of Arles of the 3rd Race,
the latter also being Kings of Burgundy.
Book III. treats of the "Kings of Arles (without property in Provence
or Burgundy)."
Section I.--Kings of Arles, high sovereigns, relatives, and heirs
testamentary of Rudolph the last King of Arles and Burgundy.
Section II.--Kings of Arles calling themselves high Sovereigns "en
qualité d'Empereurs estimant que ce royaume a esté uny a l'Empire."
There were 254 years of this dispensation, and among these rulers occur
the names of the Emperor Lothair II., Frederick Barbarossa, and so forth.
Then comes the division into "Fiefs of the Kingdom of Arles."
1st Fief. The County of Arles from the Durance to the sea.
2nd Fief. The County of Forcalquier.
3rd Fief. The County of Venaison or of Avignon.
4th Fief. The County of Marseilles.
5th Fief. The Principality of Orange.
6th Fief. "Le Dauphiné."
7th Fief. The Duchy of Savoie.
8th Fief. The Sovereign Principality of Meurgues (Monaco), the
County of Grignan, the Barony of Les Baux, of Castellane, &c.
All this wide territory constituted the ancient Kingdom of Arles.
Book IV. treats of the Counts Proprietary and Hereditary from 910
until Provence is reunited to the Crown of France (1481). To these
the Sieur de Bouche devotes many of his formidable Sections. There are
long lines of Bozons and Rothbolds of the 1st Race, and of Raimonds and
Raimond Berengers Counts of Catalonia and of Barcellona and Kings of
Aragon--beings of a most strange personal appearance if one may judge
by the quaint old engravings which head each of the Sieur's Books of
Chapters. They stare out of their medallions with a grotesque expression
of royal blankness combined with a dull, obscure form of indignation
which speaks ill for the "agréments" of the post of ruler of Provence in
the later Middle Ages. The complication of names and races and titles is
almost hopeless at this period. Even our dauntless author says wearily,
"nous sortons d'un lieu fort nuageux pour entrer dans un plus tenebreux."
There are three different genealogies of the Counts of the 1st Race,
and very little seems to be known of the Counts themselves with the
exception of William I.
"It was by him and his valliance that this faithless and barbarous nation
of Saracens was driven out who for nearly 100 years occupied the famous
fortress of Fraxinet la Garde, whence they issued to make plundering
expeditions by sea and land; their fort of Fraxinet and all Provence
was entirely delivered from this impious and cruel race of robbers...."
Travellers on the Riviera may see the little village of Garde Freinet--as
the ancient hornet's nest is now called--peacefully dreaming among the
mountains of the Moors, that magnificent range whose name records for
ever the long domination of those irrepressible brigands.
The inhabitants to this day are of obvious Saracen type and the grey
hill-top villages of this region are living relics of that mysterious
race.
As acknowledgment for his great services to his country William I. was
presented by the Seigneur Grimaldi of Monaco with the lands contiguous
to the fief of St. Tropez.
So uncertain seem to be the records of the dynasties of Provence that the
author has to prove the existence of one of the Counts (Count Bertrand)
by means of a document in which he "restores, restitutes, and gives" the
Church of Notre Dame des Rats (qui est l'Eglise des Trois Maries en la
Camargue) "to the Church of Saint Etienne and Saint Trophime of Arles."
The Catalan Counts of Provence: that is the 2nd Race of Proprietary
Counts who were also Counts of Catalonia and Barcelona, give the same
difficulty to their historians, who do not agree among themselves. They
seem to have become confused by the multiplicity of the names of Raimond
Berenger and of Ildefons and Alphonse--"qu'a moins d'avoir le filet
d'Ariadne il est impossible de sortir de ce Labyrinthe."
Among these confusing Counts, Raimond Berenger I. stands out for his
great virtues; and particularly, says the theologian, "for his great
piety towards the Catholic religion and for the great pains he took for
the destruction and conversion of the Moors to the Christian faith":
"destruction and conversion" being apparently regarded as part of the
same pious process.
He is followed by a procession of Raimond Berengers and Berenger Raimonds
under whose reign were waged wars with the House of Les Baux alternating
with conventions and agreements: long documents in Latin which the Counts
of Provence and the Princes of Les Baux would meet in pomp to sign at
Arles or at Tarascon.
About this date, late in the twelfth century, was held the great Council
at Albi which condemned the Albigenses, so called from that incident.
The placing of the remains of St. Martha in a beautiful church at Tarascon
where these had been hidden from the Saracens and the Goths and Vandals,
is noted as an important event during the period.
Wars against the Vaudois and Albigenses are spoken of in the reign of
Raimond Berenger V., and it is curious to see the account of these
hideous persecutions given by a doctor of the Church. The Pope, one
would suppose, had been an angel of patience, wearied out at last by
the aggressions and crimes of a set of unmanageable criminals.
"Voyant que le douceur exasperait le mal il se resolut de venir aux
remèdes violants et extremes;" a resolution which his Holiness thoroughly
carried out.
In all these vast volumes there is not one word of the unspeakable deeds
of the Church during those awful wars.
The Counts of Provence were ardently orthodox and fought against Raimond,
Count of Toulouse, the sole friend of the Albigenses (as we have already
seen).
The troubles of this noble and tolerant race came to an end on the
accession of St. Louis by the absorption of the County of Toulouse in
the Crown of France, the brother of the king marrying the daughter of the
Count, and as they had no children, the lands of the heiress of Toulouse
(by compact) were ceded to the throne. Soon after this, Provence also
came under the government of the House of France, for the brother of St.
Louis, Charles, Count of Anjou, married Beatrice of Provence, and their
union inaugurated the reign of the first race of Angevins in Provence.
The ambition of these two brought about the fierce dramatic struggle of
Conrad and Manfred and Conradin and the Sicilian Vespers, which ended
by making Charles of Anjou and Provence also King of Naples and Sicily.
It interests lovers of Provence to know that only one Frenchman escaped
the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers, a Provençal of the great name of
Porcelet (whose sombre old house still stands intact at Les Baux) and he
was spared because of the great benevolence and nobility of his character.
One of the great events in the history of the country is the transference
of the Papal Court to Avignon. Philip le Bel successfully intrigued to
place on the Papal throne as Clement V. a Frenchman living in France: Le
Gotto, Archbishop of Bordeaux. Having quarrelled with Boniface VIII.,
Philip desired to have the management of the Papacy in his own hands.
Avignon goes back to the Stone Age, so its claims to antiquity were as
great as those of Rome herself.
"In the air was ever a clashing of bells, mingling with the
sound of fife and drum; the people danced for joy, danced day
and night on the famous bridge, while the fresh air blew about
them and the rapid river flowed beneath. Such was Avignon,
says tradition in the days of the Popes."
But to return to the Angevin rulers of Provence. The most famous of
these were "la Reine Jeanne" (Queen of Naples and Sicily and Countess
of Provence) and the good King René: both of them beloved and admired by
the Provençals to this day: Queen Jeanne because of her wonderful beauty
and grace, and King René for his goodness, his charm, his _bonhomie_,
his genius.
There are accounts of the coming of the brilliant Queen to Avignon in
order to obtain a dispensation from the Pope to marry Louis of Taranto.
"Ravishingly beautiful, she arrived with great pomp, with a retinue on
the Rhone," met doubtless by the Cardinals in their scarlet robes, and
proceeding amongst the acclaiming people to the palace.
Froissart, in an account of a later interview, makes the Queen tell his
Holiness that her father, son of Robert the Good of the first Angevin
Counts of Provence, had advised her on his death-bed, if she had no
heirs to yield all her territory to whomsoever should be Pope. "In
truth, Holy Father, after his decease, with the consent of the nobles
of Sicily and Naples, I wedded Andrew of Hungary--he died, a young man,
at Aix-en-Provence...."
[Illustration: LA LICE, ARLES.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
(As the Queen had had him murdered and thrown out of a window at Aversa,
her account of his death lacked completeness.) She then casually mentions
her next husband, Prince of Taranto, and in the same sentence alludes
_en passant_ to his successor, James, King of Majorca.
"Holy Father," she adds demurely, "I then married the Lord Otho of
Brunswick."
The Sieur de Bouche, always methodical, arranges Queen Jeanne's husbands
in a list according to priority (not alphabetical).
It is as difficult to arrive at the real story of this famous lady
as at that of Mary Queen of Scots. Both were renowned for beauty, but
both must have possessed a quality of charm less easy to define or they
could not have exerted so powerful a hold on the imagination of their
contemporaries. Both were accused, if not convicted, of great crimes,
and both came to a tragic end; Queen Jeanne dying in prison in her own
kingdom of Naples.
King René, the kind, merry, artistic, unpractical monarch, who is said to
have been able to do all things except govern a kingdom, is remembered
with real love by his people. There is a romance attached to his name.
His first marriage was merely one of State policy and during his wife's
lifetime he is said to have loved Jeanne de la Val, to whom he gave the
"celebrated and illustrious barony of Baux," in 1458.
On the death of the Queen Isabel, he married the lady of his heart, and
there appears good reason to believe that this love-match was a deeply
happy one, King and Queen though the lovers were.
René the Good seems to have been made of that sort of fibre that radiates
happiness as the sun radiates warmth.
During this reign the town of Orange gave birth to an institution which
seems curiously out of keeping with the spirit of the time and place,
viz., the Provençal Parliament, the creation of Count William of Orange.
It was regarded popularly as one of the scourges of the country,
"_Parlemant, Mistral et Durance
Sont les trois fléaux de Provence_";
and later we hear complaints against the Parliament to the Council
of the Lateran for attacks made by it on the "liberty of the Church,"
interference in the functions of the bishops, and so forth.
But this is after the death of René, and after Charles III., his nephew
and successor, had left all his territory to his cousin, Louis XI., and
Provence once more lapsed to the Crown of France.
* * * * *
From this point French history and Provençal history become one, and
Provence has for her Counts Louis XI., Francis I., Henry II., Francis
II. ("Roy de France et d'Ecosse," as de Bouche entitles him). Then
come the religious wars in Dauphiny and Provence, the suspension of the
Parliament, the Great Plague in the time of Henry III., and the "birth
of the Ligue, which has caused so many evils in France," according to
our historian.
The Etats Généraux de Provence were held at Aix in the reign of Henry IV.
From this time to that of Louis XIV. the country is hopelessly given
over to religious troubles. Religion, or the passions that are let loose
under that name, have been the scourge of this distracted land made by
nature for happiness and peace.
Such are the bare outlines of Provençal history during the times that, in
this country of ancient lineage, present an aspect almost modern. Those
authors who have studied the drama of its farthest past treat familiarly
of ages in which the Glacial Epoch plays a quite juvenile _rôle_.
One writer (Berenger Feraud) divides the Paleolithic Age into several
epochs, one of which (Epoque Solutréen) he alludes to as a relatively
short one of 11,000 years; generally they are about 100,000 years or so.
In Provence the human story can be traced to the earliest of those
geological epochs when man could only express himself by "modulated
cries." It took centuries and centuries to acquire a rudiment of words.
From the second epoch, when the country had become colder, dates our
venerable Hearth and Home; the family living in caves (such as are still
to be seen at Les Baux, for instance), and sleeping or crouching round
the wood fires on long winter nights and days, slowly developing speech
from the increased need of exchanging sequent ideas.
Then came the awful darkness and death of the Glacial Period, changing
still further the contours of the country.
The retreat of the glacial cold ushered in the "Epoque Magdalenienne,"
when life became comparatively easy, though the climate of Provence was
still "colder than that of St. Petersburg." The Magdaleniens had arrived
at sculpturing rough figures on the rocks, and from those records it
is concluded that they were gay, jovial, and inclined to pleasantry;
the sort of person apparently who makes a dinner-party go well. Strange
dinner-parties they must have had in their wild nooks and caverns in
the mountains of Provence!
Gradually from these mysterious days we emerge upon centuries less
absolutely hidden from our curiosity: the time of the invasion of the
Ligurians, Iberians, Celts, and other races, from about the fifteenth
century B.C. to 600 B.C. This brings us almost back to the light of day,
with the rather startling consciousness that the ancient Ligurians, who
represented to the imagination the beginning of all things Provençal,
suddenly appear as modern innovations.
A long stretch of time had still to pass, filled with a hundred
half-fabulous events, before the Roman Conquest brought the country
within the domain of actual history.
* * * * *
And during all those ages what language was being used and developed by
the multitudes of races that passed like phantoms across the country,
phantoms to our imagination, yet each race, each individual, driven to
wild and eager deeds and desires by the strange life-force, the "will
to live," that sets the whole extraordinary pageant of things in motion?
From the "modulated cries" of the men who lived in holes in the earth--not
yet in the comparatively elegant cave-dwellings--to the exquisite
language of the troubadours, what has been the course of its growth? No
one knows. The only real guide that remains is the language itself, a
confusing phonographic record of the whole troublous existence of the
country of its birth.
The nearer a language is to its origin the more it is complicated.
Ingenious and subtle grammatical forms prove an ancient tongue.[25]
The natural progress is from synthesis to decomposition; and this
decomposing force is nothing more nor less than the natural laziness of
the human being, one of the most tremendous forces of the universe!
"All dialects originate from this germ of decomposition, in opposition
to the antique synthetic principle of the language," says M. Fauriel.
Thence progress can be studied by following backwards a language to its
source, that is to its more complex form. But for long stretches of time
no specimens of written language existed. Most of the popular songs and
stories were transmitted orally, and so there is only a document here
and there to reveal the slow development.
The influence of Rome as a civiliser was so enormous that it acted as
a break on the new movement which was destined in time to create the
world we call modern. That new world which the Barbarians were to bring
into being was postponed in the making by the very excellence of the
institutions that it gradually superseded.
This slowness of pace affected the language. It took six centuries to
transmute the Latin into the Romance tongues, a process as tremendous
in its way as the formation during geological eons of the limestone and
the chalk.
Two great movements had taken place in the speech of Gaul and Spain;
first the imposition of the Latin tongue on the conquered provinces and
then the reversal of the process till the Latin was again corrupted back
into dialects. In the return journey the Latin remained as a foundation
and in it were left many words belonging to the ancient language of the
country, so that non-Latin words in Romance may date from either before
or after the introduction of the classic tongue.
It was not until the fourth century that it showed signs of giving way.
It broke up gradually into modern French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Roumanian Provençal. The tribes of the Acquitani gave the character to
the dialects of the South-west, where, according to many writers, their
speech still survives in the Basque language.
It would be a long story, that of the great Romance tongues from the
earlier waverings of the Latin in the fourth century, to the eleventh
century, when the first troubadour, Guillem de Poictiers, delighted the
knights and ladies of Limousin and half France with his songs.
The _langue d'oc_ was by that time ready to his hand, or so it would
seem, for it is a remarkable fact that there is scarcely any difference
between the language of this pioneer troubadour and that of his latest
successors in the thirteenth century, whose voices were so soon to be
drowned in the din and horror of the Albigensian wars.
Two hundred years of dance and song! Something at least saved from the
gloom and folly of the human story!
During the six hundred years from the fourth to the eleventh century
modern Europe, its religion, its institutions, its language, its destiny
were in process of formation. And a rude process it was.
[Illustration: A PROVENÇAL FARM.
_By E. M. Synge._]
During these centuries, "deluged with blood," the language must have been
in a state of fusion. We know that, for the earlier epochs at least, no
one could write his name except a cleric, and agreements were all signed
with a cross. There was no general social movement, only incessant changes
in the balance of power between kings and nobles. Brutal, unreasoning,
material in the real sense of the word, despite their reputation as ages
of faith, these centuries were destitute of progressive elements, and
there was little or nothing to cause the speech to refine or develop.
Literature and Latin died together. The Gallic tongue left traces in
the speech of the South and there are several Provençal words in Irish
and Welsh and in the language of the districts of the Vaudois showing
their common Celtic origin, if one may judge from the first words of
the Lord's Prayer:--
_Vaudois._
"Our narme ata air neambh
Beanish atanim."
_Irish._
"Ar nathair ata ar neamb
Naemhthar hamin."
Strange to say, the Franks left scarcely any trace in the speech of the
country. Wide as were the conquests of this people, with Charlemagne
for Emperor in later days, their victory did not extend to the language.
Latin, as we have seen, flagged in the fourth century, and was finally
extinguished about the middle of the ninth century.
This breaking up of the speech of the Romans into Romance forms a curious
analogue to the breaking up of the Roman architecture into Romanesque.
This latter change took place after the formation of independent States
had superseded the old centralising Imperial idea.
Architecture, in its turn, developed different local styles, all deriving
their character from the Roman and all called by the general name of
Romanesque.
The chief peculiarity of Provençal Romanesque is in the pointed vaultings
of the churches as distinguished from the familiar round arch of the
Roman work.
The date of the introduction of the pointed arch into Gaul is a vexed
question, but it is certain that it arrived earlier in Provence than in
the North of France. It was found easier to build, and it "exerted less
thrust on the side walls."[26]
But it was used in Provence for utilitarian reasons only, and it curiously
happened that the South abandoned the pointed arch just when the North
began to adopt it for decoration. The South preferred the round arch
for this purpose, and as the architects grew more skilful they were
able to cope with its difficulties, and thus--contrary to the usual
rule--the pointed form in Provence denotes greater antiquity than the
round vaulting. In the North, of course, it is exactly the reverse.
Byzantine influence was introduced into the South by the trade channel
through France with the Levant, of which Perigueux in Acquitaine was
a centre, and here the Venetian traders built a church on the plan of
St. Mark's at Venice. This church of Perigueux was taken as a model by
local architects who introduced the Byzantine dome and the aisleless
nave; this latter being also a Byzantine feature, which may be seen in
some of the churches of Toulouse for instance. Byzantine, or possibly
merely late Roman influence is shown in the polygonal form of the apses
and cupolas, "in the flat arches employed to decorate the walls, in the
mouldings with small projections and numerous members; in the flat and
delicate ornament; and in the sharp and toothed carving of the foliage."
Another feature of Provençal work is the strikingly Roman character,
produced, it is supposed, by the great number of fine Roman buildings in
the country. These architectural models, according to the authoritative
opinion of Ross and McGibbon, while stimulating the growth of the art
of the South, probably prevented it from developing on original lines
by "impressing on it the stamp of the classic trabeated style," that
is the construction founded on that of the archaic buildings formed of
wooden beams.
This process of architectural development, while analogous to that of
the language, is naturally much simpler and much easier to follow. The
history of the speech of this great continent is wearisomely obscure
and complex.
Gaston Paris[27] writes as follows:--"There were in Gaul at the
Merovingian epoch, without mentioning the Basque and Breton corners,
three languages: (1) grammatical Latin, become a dead language; (2) the
vulgar Latin or Romance spoken by all the indigenous population; (3)
the German represented by the Frank, the Burgundian, and the Gothic."
But the Germans in Gaul, mixing with the ancient Gallo-Roman families,
ended by speaking Romance, all distinctions between the two races
disappearing. The writings of Gregory of Tours throw light upon this
transitional period, the _lingua rustica_ having by that time encroached
upon the would-be grammatical Latin.
"... There were profound alterations suffered by the speech of the people
in the vowels and consonants during the Merovingian epoch," and during
that same epoch new principles of rhythm which permitted of versification
in the Romance tongue were being slowly and laboriously adapted to these
alterations of sound.[28] From this the author concludes that there
existed a "poetic activity," though we have no detailed remains to prove
it. We know only that at the spring festivals (survivals of antiquity)
there were popular songs and dances. Those who recited and sang were
called _joculares_--and caused much scandal to the Christian moralists!
The lighter German songs of love and wine have left no obvious trace,
but the elements of their epics are embedded in the French _epopée_
which Gaston Paris thinks owes to them its existence. He speaks of it
as the outcome of the national spirit--which had arisen after the Franks
had given a sort of unity to the country--and of the more individualist
inspiration of the German epics. Thus the popular language must have
been under a smelting or moulding process, passing through the poetic
crucible for many a year of which we have no record.
There are but few milestones on this ancient road, but if all were
carefully examined in order of time, it is probable that the gaps might
be bridged over by the eye of learning and the line of development made
plain.
An anecdote of the tenth century, given by M. Fauriel, illustrates the
condition of the language of that date.
A Gaul who had been present at several of the miracles of St. Martin,
being asked by some Acquitanians to give an account of them, is diffident,
and says he is illiterate.
"Speak as you please," said one of the Acquitanians, "speak Celtic or
Gothic if you prefer it, provided only you speak of St. Martin."
It was at this time that the language of Acquitaine which has lingered
in the valleys of the Pyrenees began to be called Basque. The rest of
the country was speaking the Romance, with its 3,000 "barbarian words."
Among these are some Acquitanian, a few of which are below:--
BASQUE WORDS IN PROVENÇALE.
_Aonar_ to aid
Rabbi river
Grazal vase
Nec gloomy
Gaissar to injure
_Asko_ much
Biz black
Enoc sadness
Gais evil, misfortune
Unlike the languages of the so-called Sanscrit type (to which
belong Greek, Latin, Celtic, and even Slavonian), the Basque--as is
well-known--cannot be traced back to any common origin: this mysterious
aboriginal tongue of the Acquitani is an orphan and an alien without
kith or kin, unless indeed the adventurous writer who claims for it an
Etruscan origin be in the right.
Acquitaine took a large part in the wars with the invading Arabs of
Spain, and their Duke Eudes, after many victories, was finally defeated
by the famous Abderrahman and the county was left at the mercy of the
conquerors until Charles Martel at length expelled them.
It was in these wars that Charlemagne made his famous and disastrous
expedition to Ronçevalles which inspired the poetic imagination of the
day.
The many wars of these times of transition and the long struggles of the
Gallo-Romans and Acquitanians against the Franks formed subjects for the
popular poetry which was slowly working towards the literary outburst
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
[Illustration: COW-BOYS OF THE CAMARGUE.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
The people of Acquitaine seem to have been leaders in the revolt against
the Frankish dominion; their country had been left by Charlemagne as
an independent kingdom, but on his death they at once went to war with
the Franks and led the way to the dismemberment of the Carlovingian
Empire. There is an ancient poem whose name and hero is Walter of
Acquitaine--related to the Nibelingen and Scandinavian sagas--which seems
to represent the national and anti-Frankish spirit of the Acquitanians
and of all the Gallo-Roman epoch.
It was in Limousin, as we have seen, that all these movements of popular
literature finally arrived at a sort of culmination, and we find ourselves
suddenly in a brilliant world of gaiety and song.
Count Ebles III. of Ventadour was then composing his verses of "alacrity
and joy," and the Châteaux of Limousin were enthusiastically cultivating
the new poetry; and a little later William IX. of Poictiers, the "first
troubadour," was born, the gay, courteous teller of stories and singer
of songs, of whom the already quoted saying was abroad that "he went
about the world to impose on the ladies."
He had the audacity to refuse to join the Crusade, perhaps because he
was a "free-thinker"--a rare being indeed in those days--denying the
existence of God.
But when Jerusalem fell and the Christians were forming a kingdom there,
he went out with a multitude of knights to join them, though apparently
with a heavy heart.
On the eve of departure he composed a lyric to his native land.
"Adieu, now diversions and sports!
Adieu now furred robes of vair and of grey,
Adieu ye fine vestments of silk,
I shall depart into exile...."[29]
And so, in this confused struggling fashion, during the course of
centuries, the _langue d'oc_ came to be the language of chivalry and
romantic love: the language in which are written the laws of courtesy and
of honour that we reverence to this day. The transition from the rudeness
which was fitted to express the few ideas of early mediæval life to the
fineness and polished charm of the troubadour poetry remains always more
or less of a mystery; but however it came about, it is certain that when
the troubadours and the chivalrous knights were born into the world by
the "grace of God," the beautiful characteristic tongue which had been
forged for their use by the beating of the ages of events was waiting
and worthy to carry the thought and the emotion of an awakening people.
CHAPTER XXV
THE SONG OF THE RHONE
"Salut, empèri dóu soulèu, que bordo
Coume un orle d'argènt lou Rose bléuge!
Empèri dóu soulas, de l'alegrìo!
Empèri fantasti de la Prouvènço
Qu'emé toun noum soulet fas gau au mounde!"
("Hail, Empire of the sun, which the dazzling Rhone borders
like a silver hem! Empire of happiness and gaiety, fantastic
Empire of Provence, thou who with thy name alone charmest the
world!")
MISTRAL, _The Poem of the Rhone_ (_Canto Second_--xviii.).
With the spirit of the country, the whole crew and company of the
_Caburle_--Maître Apian's barge in Mistral's poem--seems to be imbued.
Even the little maiden Anglore--in love with a water-sprite--even she
has caught something of the large _abandon_ of the great stream.
Warned that the Prince--whom she believes to be the Drac--will fascinate
and then desert her, she cries: "Eh! bien qu'il me fascine. Si mon destin
est tel, moi, je me laisserai choir a la pipée, comme au gouffre béant
tombe la feuille."
The whole poem is steeped in the movement and sunshine of the river:
the charm of the life on its banks, especially in times now past; the
plying of the barges up and down, laden with merchandise, the towns and
ancient castles that they pass, the gay spirit of the passengers along
this buoyant thoroughfare, "l'ornière du monde" as Maître Apian calls
it, the owner of the "most famous equipage of the whole river"--seven
barges and forty horses for towing. In the finest of them, the _Caburle_,
he sets forth from the neighbourhood of Lyons to descend the river to
Beaucaire for the great fair, his other barges following, with cargo
and with food for the horses.
"Que sus la dougo, au retour de Prouvenço.
Gaiardamen remountavon la rigo."
(Qui sur la berge, au retour de Provence,
Gaillardement remontaient la convoi.)
And so the little flotilla goes on its way down the current, the _Caburle_
leading, with the image of St. Nicholas at its prow, and at the poop,
placed high on the rudder, the mariner's cross, painted red and carved
(one winter when the waters had been caught in the grip of the frost) by
Maître Apian himself. And the instruments of the Passion: nails, lance,
hammer, and all associated with it directly or indirectly, are piously
represented.
"En cargo pèr la fiero de Bèu-Caire,
l'a cènt batèu que vuei soun de partènço."
(With cargo for the fair of Beaucaire, there are a hundred
barges starting to-day.)
And there is a friendly rivalry between them, for the first boat to arrive
at the meadow of Beaucaire receives, as a welcome from the citizens, a
fine sheep. Alas! as we know, the days of the fair of Beaucaire are over!
"Despachatiéu, en aio, fourro-bourro."
"In haste, agitated, pell-mell," the mariners bestir themselves, and
the merry, busy procession moves down stream. Maître Apian lifts his cap.
"Au noum de Dieu e de la Santo Viergo,
Au Rose."
"To the Rhone!" he cries, and all who are with him uncover their heads,
and make the sign of the cross, dipping their fingers in the wave--for
the river is blessed every year, with a fine procession at the Pont St.
Esprit, and so it is holy water.
A most singular and very "mixed" company the _Caburle_ carries with her
down the river during twelve long cantos: among them, curiously enough,
William of Orange, son of the King of Holland, who had been sent to
Provence for his health. Besides him there are three Venetian ladies who
keep their companions lively with songs and jests. And this little blond
prince--whom the doctors think the mistral is likely to benefit--has
come to seek the flower of the Rhone of which he has heard so much--
"Flour de pantai, de gentun, de belésso,
que, pèr tout païs ounte s'atrovo,
L'ome i'es gai e la dona i'es bello."
("Fleur de beauté, fleur de grace et de rêve
Par tout pays ou on la trouve,
L'homme est joyeux, la femme belle.")
Then they all tell him that it is the flowering rush that nourishes itself
in the water--which "l'Anglore" loves to gather. And the little blond
prince pricks up his ears and wants to know who or what is l'Anglore.
And thereby hangs a tale.
"La voilà, la voilà," they all cry on the barges.
Her hand on her hip, Anglore, with a branch of the flower of the Rhone in
her hand, stands on the bank waiting and smiling. Since her infancy she
has come to watch these boats arriving, the great flat boats that they
call _sisselands_ on the river. Well known to all the sailors, she would
exchange greetings and friendly badinage with them as they passed. And
the men would throw apples and pears into her apron as she held it out
to catch them. She was a familiar figure along the water-side, and bore
the nickname of Anglore, the lizard, because she was always basking in
the sun on the banks. But she was not idle. Assiduously she sifted with
her little sieve the grains of gold that the Ardèche brought down after
the rains. Her father was a pilot at the Pont St. Esprit to guide the
boats past the "spurs of the treacherous buttresses." And the sailors,
having passed the Trois Donzelles and the Îles Margeries, would say
joyously--
"Allons, ... nous allons bientôt voir
Au Malatra papilloner l'Anglore."
And there, sure enough, she was, with her red handkerchief on her head,
busy at work. And they would cry, "Ohé, has she not made her fortune,
l'Anglore?"
And Anglore replies, "Aïe! pauvrette, ils n'en jettent pas tant d'or
dans l'Ardèche, ces gueux de Cévennols! Mais vous passez bien vite."
"Le Rhône est fier (high) there is no stopping, belle jeunesse! But when
we go up stream on our return, and the horses pull at the ropes, then
we will bring you some dates."
"Bon voyage aux marins," she cries farewell.
"Adieu, Mignonne!"
And one of the crew, Jean Roche, throws her several kisses as the barge
moves away. He has a tender interest in the maiden, who however has no
heart to give him, for she has been fascinated by a most singular lover,
the Drac, or Spirit of the Rhone who lives under the green waters and
entices unwary maidens down and down to his shimmering home beneath the
flood.
"Oh! lis atiramen de l'aigo blouso
Quand lou sang nòu espilo dins li veno!"
("Oh! l'attraction du liquide élément
Quand jaillit dans les veines le sang neuf!")
[Illustration: ANGLORE ON THE RIVER BANK.
_Scene from Mistral's Poem of the Rhone._
_By E. M. Synge._]
It seems to intoxicate the children of the riverside.
"L'aigo que ris e cascaio ajouguido
Entre li coudelet...."
("de l'eau qui rit et gazouille enjouée
parmi les galets....")
The mother of Anglore tells her children of the dangers of the river; of
"the blues" of the calm water where it is of profound depth. It is here
that the Drac loves to disport himself: a fishlike creature, svelte as
a lamprey, twisting himself joyously in the whirl of the waters, with
greenish hair which floats on the waves like seaweed. Anglore hears the
story of the young woman of Beaucaire beating her linen on the river
banks, when she suddenly sees the Drac in the water, and he makes a sign
of invitation to his palace of crystal where he promises to show her all
his riches, the wreckage of shipping for many a year. And the maiden,
unable to resist the strange fascination, is drawn under the waves in a
sort of dream; and for seven long years she lives with the Drac in his
fresh green grotto filled with watery light.
And Anglore, on one hot, still night, goes down to the banks in the
moonlight. In the profound silence she hears the murmur of the river.
The glowworms are throwing their strange glamour on the grass and the
nightingales are answering one another in the woods; and then suddenly
the girl seems to lose her head, and flinging off her few garments,
plunges into the stream.
It is a half fearful pleasure as she moves through its cool freshness.
If a fish ricochets over the surface in pursuit of a fly, if a little
whirlpool makes a tiny sound of in-sucking as it twirls in the rush, if a
bat cries, her heart gives a sick beat. But it is joy to be thus clothed
by the sumptuous mantle of the torrent; "to be mingled, confounded with
the great Rhone." Suddenly, in the moonlight, deep down, stretched upon
the moss--the Drac! His eyes fix her, fascinate; and fearful, stupefied,
she has to go towards the sorcerer who murmurs words of mysterious love.
And then, all at once, Anglore, feeling his cold arms round her, springs
up and sees gliding through the water a vague shadow, serpentine and
white, and floating on the surface a flowering reed!
A narrow escape! But the quaint part of the story is yet to come. When
the barge of Maître Apian makes its return journey the crew throws the
rope ashore and Anglore knots it round an old stake. Then Jean Roche
takes Anglore in his arms and lifts her on board, and every one crowds
round to welcome her.
"Eh bèn, que dis Angloro?" they cry.
"Dise tout bèn de vous," she replies politely.
Then Jean Roche says, "Santo que canto! If thou wert not more sensible
than I, Anglore, dost thou know what we would do?"
"Pancaro, digo" (Pas encore, dis).
"Well, to-morrow evening we would go together to see the plays at
Beaucaire, the two of us, arm in arm, on the meadow we would go and see
the gypsies who tell fortunes; we would stroll round to all the booths,
and I would buy you a beautiful ring."
"Of glass?" asks Anglore.
"No, of gold. And at the end of the fair I would bring you back as my
wife at Saint Maurice."
But Anglore laughs and puts him off, and finally tells him that he has
been forestalled by one who would drown him in the depths of the Rhone
if he caught him fishing in his "lone."[30]
So poor Jean Roche relapses into dismal silence. Presently the Prince
of Orange, radiant, and carrying a branch of the flower of the Rhone,
issues from his tent on the barge where he has been sleeping, humming,
still half asleep, the Venetian song of the three lively ladies--
"Sur mon bateau qui file
Viens, je t'enlève au frais:
Car, prince de Hollande,
Je n'ai peur de personne."
And Anglore suddenly turns very pale and nearly faints.
"C'est lui! c'est lui!" she cries wildly; and it turns out that she takes
the prince for the Drac! And he, with his mind turning on the object of
his search, says that he recognises her. "O fleur du Rhone epanouie sur
l'eau."
"Drac, je te reconnais! car sous la lone
Je t'ai vu dans la main le bouquet que tu tiens.
A ta barbette d'or, à ta peau blanche,
A tes yeux glauques, ensorceleurs, perçants,
Je vois bien qui tu es."
Rather embarrassing for Monsieur le Prince! However he is quite equal
to the occasion. He presents her with the flower, and then--suddenly he
trembles! It is scarcely necessary to add (we are in Provence) that the
next canto is occupied with the loves of Anglore and the blond prince.
These go simply and smoothly on board the barge, where the mariners show
the most astonishing tact and never seem to get in the way. When the
Prince asks Anglore what she would say if he told her he was really the
son of the King of Holland, she replies, "My Drac, I should simply say
that you can transfigure yourself into any form that may be agreeable
to you, and if you have taken that of the Prince of Orange it is for
some freak or mad fancy. Oh! my Drac, of what use is it to try to hide
yourself?"
What was there to be done (the poem demands) but instantly to embrace
"la folatre"? It is hard to say, adds the poet, "which is the more
intoxicated, more under the spell of enchantment."
And so, in their great happiness they float down stream.
"radieux et ivres de votre luminière du Rhone."
Fields, vineyards, olive-groves, castles, cities, drift by as in a
beautiful dream.
All the while the hot Provençal sun is beating on the barge, and the
sorceress river is flowing and flowing: the whole scene a symbol of the
country and its magic. After one has swept down and toiled up the Rhone
in the _Caburle_, one knows a little more of what it all means, this
fief of the sun and wind, this Land of the Passionate River!
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CAMARGUE
"Not a growing thing
Save stunted tamarisk.
* * * * *
Salt-wort, sea poppy"
Sometimes a lonely sea-mew breaks the monotony of the sky, or, some
huge-winged bird, the "stalking hermit of the lagoon," casts a flitting
shadow.
"One vast desert ...
The sole confine some distant glare of sea."
In summer there are no flowers in this forsaken region, only the white
inflorescence of salt crystals--frozen tears of generations of vanished
peoples one might fancy them. And, as if in mockery, a mirage, born
of those bitter tears, hovers on the horizon as the hot sun breeds an
invisible vapour from which arise distant cities and a labyrinth of
smooth lagoons that shimmer alluringly across the white solitude.
Such is the Camargue. The description, however, applies in strictness to
the summer season. In winter the salt with which the ground is saturated
is not visible; there is only a moist oozy-looking soil, growing reeds
and stunted bushes.
[Illustration: PORCH OF CHURCH OF ST. GILLES IN THE CAMARGUE.
_By E. M. Synge._]
Mistral's heroine, _Mirèio_, who dies in the Camargue at the Church of
Les Saintes Maries, falls down exhausted before she arrives there, by
the shores of the great lake of the Camargue and is awakened by the
stinging of the dangerous gnats which infest the whole region in the
hot season, and perhaps account for the malaria which lies in wait for
the careless traveller.
The driver of the carriage in which we traversed this river-encircled
district, told us that in summer the water in these branches of the Rhone
fell so low that the fish died in immense quantities, and this attracted
great swarms of flies whose sting became very perilous in consequence
of their gruesome banquet.
This deserted region is a near neighbour of the Crau, separated only
by the river at the southern end from the Field of Pebbles; yet in all
the Camargue, as the natives say, you cannot find a stone to throw at
a dog--a mode of expression betraying the sentiment of the country as
regards our four-footed friends and brothers.
Our journey was from Aigues Mortes to Les Saintes Maries, a drive across
the Camargue of about 36 kilometres--36 kilometres of strange, silent,
mournful country, well-nigh desert, for the salt in the soil prevents
cultivation and all growth is stunted and wild and of little use except
here and there for grazing purposes. From time immemorial it has been
the home of herds of black cattle, "wild cattle" they are generally
called, and in all the poems and accounts of the district, one finds
highly-coloured descriptions of the driving of these ferocious creatures
to pasture and of the exciting barbaric ceremony of branding them in the
spring. They are always spoken of as being extremely formidable, and their
appearance in great hordes, fierce and untamed, their dashing owners in
pursuit on splendid steeds, is described with charming picturesqueness.
Our driver kept a keen look-out for these creatures as we made our way
across the plain. At last, just as we were in despair of seeing them, he
pointed out their hoof-marks where they come down to the water to drink.
It was a thrilling moment, and we scanned the distance with eagerness,
listening for the thunder of galloping feet. Suddenly the driver pulled
up and gave an exclamation.
"Les Voilà!"
Alas! a disillusion, the first we had met with in Provence.
A little way off, in quite domestic tranquillity, were some twenty or
thirty amiable, decorous-looking black beasts who had presumably never
"thundered" or dreamt of it in all their well-spent lives. Day after day,
from byre to pasture and from pasture to byre, at no time even in their
giddiest calfdom had they given their guardian--who was now superintending
their repast--a moment's uneasiness! Fiery, untamed cattle, at any rate
in the winter season, are not to be seen on the Camargue.
The red flamingoes, too, are really pink, and very pale at that; but
it is beautiful to see them flying in great flocks over the lake of the
Vaccares, and settling to feed or to exchange ideas on some wild islet on
whose low shores beat white-capped fussy little waves which the smallest
mistral quickly raises on its shallow water.
We visited this lake from Arles on another occasion, for the Camargue is
too big to see all at one time. Even as it was, our day was crowded--to
Aigues Mortes in the morning across the plain, visiting Les Saintes
Maries, and back to Arles in the evening.
[Illustration: AIGUES MORTES, LOOKING ALONG THE WALLS.
_By E. M. Synge._]
After Carcassonne one felt there was nothing more to experience in the
shape of a mediæval city. Yet Aigues Mortes--the city of St. Louis, the
City of the Marsh, with its wonderful ramparts and square towers, all
unchanged since the days of the Crusaders--brought before the eye of the
imagination yet another aspect of the fascination of the Middle Ages.
The walls are said to be built on the models of the fortified towns of
Syria and to be almost a repetition of those of Ascalon. Here, as in
many mediæval cities, were originally wooden balconies overhanging the
base of the walls, the battlements being in fact a wall with ingress at
intervals to the balcony. Later was substituted for the wooden balcony
projecting galleries of stone on corbels, and these stone galleries or
machicolations are comparatively recent.
To this scene belongs, among other historical events, the splendid
procession of St. Louis and his followers as they embarked from this
city of his founding for the first crusade.
The place is called Aigues Mortes from the dead branches of the river,[31]
and its situation in this low-lying ground near the sea, with the whole
Camargue lying flat and mournful before it, bears out the suggestion of
the strange melancholy name.
Ancient writers of romance are fond of talking about the "frowning walls"
of a city. On looking back at Aigues Mortes as one recedes from it across
the Camargue one admits their justification. The dark high ramparts,
with their stern-looking square towers--unlike the round extinguisher
towers of Carcassonne--do most undeniably "frown."[32]
The city with its great gateway seems not to belong to our present life at
all, in spite of its hotels and shops and the people in the market-place.
It is as if a fragment of the tenth or eleventh century had been dropped
by some accident when the Scroll of Time was being rolled up!
The illusion is almost painfully perfect, producing that curious
bewilderment with which we provincial mortals (by no means yet citizens
of the universe) are assailed when forced to realise--as well as
intellectually to accept--the fact of a state of existence absolutely
alien to our own experience.
Another delightful expedition in the Camargue is to the Church of St.
Gilles on the outskirts of this extraordinary desert through which the
main line runs at this point; and many of the trains stop at the little
station only a short distance westward from Arles. By a singular chance
the curé happened to be in the train on his way to Nimes, to read a
paper about the many vexed archæological questions regarding this famous
and exquisite church, this "ne plus ultra of Byzantine art," as Mèrimée
calls it; and he was much delighted to talk about the building of which
he is immensely proud.
Such a Church for beauty and interest had never before existed! These
were the sentiments of the good curé, a rosy-cheeked, comfortable,
courteous old antiquary. It certainly merits his enthusiasm.
The three great richly sculptured arches of the façade are magnificent
of their kind. It seems as if all the saints and angels of Christendom
had alighted in a swarm upon these sumptuous portals. They cluster on
frieze and cornice, on arch and bracket and niche, in multitudes, the
whole work perfectly balanced and finely executed, and resulting in
an effect of romantic richness combined with the pious simplicity of
sentiment which is characteristic of all Southern Romanesque churches.
The crypt is especially magnificent.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF LES SAINTES MARIES SEEN FROM THE CAMARGUE.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
But the church of which one hears the most in Provence is "Les Saintes
Maries," or "Santa Maria de la Mar," as it was sometimes called in the
twelfth century. It is another of the fortified churches of the littoral,
a sister to Maguelonne and still more famous. At one end of our long day's
journey stood Aigues Mortes, at the other Les Saintes Maries. The little
white speck above the level of the plain on the far horizon, which can
be discerned when about ten miles from Aigues Mortes, grows bigger and
bigger, till at last the strange, rude, characteristic outline of the
lonely church by the sea fascinates and holds the eye till one reaches
it after the 36 kilometres of desert.
The shrine of the three holy women is visited every year by hundreds of
pilgrims, and many a sick person is cured by the power of the relics,
say the curé and the Catholic Church--by the not less astonishing potency
of the "unconscious mind" assert the more advanced of the modern schools
of mental science.
The curé said that he had seen several hundred cures. Many paralytics
and those who had been bitten by mad dogs came on this pilgrimage, and
he had known only two cases of failure. The bones of Mary, mother of
Jacob, and of her daughter, Mary Salomé, with those of their servant
Sara, are all preserved in a richly painted reliquary, which is let down
among the people from its shrine above the tribune. This is the moment
of salvation, and hundreds of arms are stretched imploringly towards
it, and hundreds of voices are raised in supplication; and judging by
the many well-authenticated accounts some mysterious healing power is
actually set in motion.
Anything more forlorn than the little village that has grown up around
the church is difficult to imagine. There is not a soul stirring, and
scarcely a sound is to be heard indicating human life. The Camargue
stretches to westward. The sea beats on the sandy beach a little way
beyond the village square. One hears the waves quietly running in upon
the shore. In the middle of the square stands an ancient carved stone
cross. The people of the place have the reputation of being rude and
almost savage, and their ignorance is said to be incredible.
[Illustration: CROSS IN VILLAGE SQUARE AT LES SAINTES MARIES.
_By E. M. Synge._]
The exterior of Les Saintes Maries is rude, warlike, even sterner in
aspect than Maguelonne, and it stands bare and solitary on this desert
spot with not a tree or a green thing near it; only the spectral, thinly
clad, unearthly looking trees of the Camargue dimly in sight here and
there in the grey distance.
The door of the church was open, and we entered. Again, as in Maguelonne,
great arches and apses, sombre, religious, primitive, the candles and
artificial flowers with which the altars were decked for Christmas
standing out pathetically against the gloom.
In one of the side chapels the curé was busy painting the background of
a _crèche_. He was occupied with the Star in the East when we arrived,
and was so absorbed that he did not hear our footsteps. When we came
nearer he turned and descended from the ladder on which he had mounted,
explaining that he had been appointed to the cure only a few months
and found to his dismay that the benighted inhabitants had never in all
their lives had a _crèche_ at Christmas! So he was busying himself to
redeem them from this state of spiritual darkness. The palm-trees and
_la sainte vierge_ were expected to-morrow from Nimes. _Le Christ_ had
already arrived.
The curé went forward to give a touch to the manger as he spoke.
"Vous voyez les vaches--qu'elles sont jolies!" He stood back to
contemplate them. The boy who had conducted us to the church remained
gazing in dumb admiration, and though he was peremptorily sent on a
message by the curé, he returned almost at once to gaze anew, which
brought down on him an impatient reproof.
"Va t'en, va t'en; qu'est-ce que tu fais la avec ta bouche grand-ouverte;
sauve toi donc!"
And poor Jules had to shut his mouth and tear himself away from the
alluring scene.
[Illustration: LES SAINTES MARIES.
_By E. M. Synge._]
We visited the tomb of Sara and saw the sacred reliquary containing the
bones of the saints, which were saved from peril at the time of the great
Revolution by the faithful curé of that day, who took out the precious
relics from the chests, leaving in their place some ordinary bones and
hiding the real ones, which were afterwards replaced with great pomp
when the danger was over.
The roof is formed of stone slabs, the same as that of Maguelonne, and
the view from it is as extensive but far more solitary.
"La mer indéfinie, l'éternelle limite blanche à l'horizon, et la lande,
toujours, aux salicornes basses et aux tamaris clairsemés. C'est une
heure exquise de mélancholie, de pieux idéal ... l'immense arène jaune
bordeé par la mer bleu et l'horizon de sable; les lagunes nageés dans
une brume lumineuse d'ou rien ne surgit que vers le nord-est, le pic
Saint Loup, comme une fantôme."
* * * * *
We left this lonely church with the twilight falling upon it, and the
evening silence. In the village square little whirls of loose sand were
coming up from the beach with the gusts of wind, harbingers of a coming
mistral, and one could hear always in the strange quiet, the beat and
retreat of the waves.
CHAPTER XXVII
"ARTISTS IN HAPPINESS"
"Baseness rusts, wears out and seals up young-heartedness."
RAIMBAUT D'AURENGA.
It is doubtful if there is a country in Europe where the spirit of the
past is so strong as it is in Provence.
One needs not to dive down for it below the surface; it lives before
one's eyes everywhere, every day. That strange cheer and blitheness
that seems to belong to the centuries gone by has not yet been beaten
down by the care and heaviness of modern life. The mere act of living is
still joyful, the zest and charm of simple things still survives among
the people. They live without hurry, yet they work to good purpose; far
more quickly and efficiently than in England.
They seem to work hard, yet without toil; no doubt because they know
also how to play.
This has all to be said with reservations, however, for the modern spirit
is stealing into the country; it is like the little edge of the earth's
shadow when the moon begins to be eclipsed. But the old is still dominant
and will not easily be destroyed.
It is not merely the world of yesterday, of the Middle Ages that lingers,
but--as we have seen--the world of the ancients. That is half the secret
of the country.
It is this element that underlies and mingles so quaintly with the
picturesque side of religious mediævalism. No wonder men and women have
passionately tried to recover the charm of that old, fresh, lost world.
Perhaps that is why the Renaissance is so endlessly fascinating. It was
a wild, brilliant, vain attempt to find happiness and the real goal of
human life.
Men may indeed be turned from their natural quest by some harsh faith
or blinding habit, but the hunger of the heart never leaves them.
One is constrained to believe in the possibility of a fresh Renaissance
that will bring us further on our way towards the gates of Paradise,
for have we not learnt since that earlier attempt, that happiness must
be built on happiness, not on sacrifice and burnt offerings? This at
least is certain: human cruelty leads to human woe. The misery and the
cruelty below the glitter of a brilliant civilisation gnaws like some
evil creature at its heart.
_There_ was the flaw in that splendid claim on life made by the men and
women of the Renaissance. Each age brings its contributions and commits
its errors. But it is stupid to go on committing the old errors over
and over again.
Maulde de la Clavière describes the attitude of the women during all these
times of movement, which is very curious, very subtle, and very modern.
"Properly to understand their spiritual condition," he says, "we should
have to do as they did: solve the problem of feminism in the feminine
way; be women, and more than women--arch-women. It was the conviction of
all the sons of the Renaissance," he goes on, "that sentiment has higher
lights than reason, and that certain intuitions of the heart unfold to
us, as in bygone days to Socrates, horizons hitherto beyond our ken--a
foretaste of the divine.... And now the new generations were no longer
willing to regard earthly happiness as an illusion, ... and flattered
themselves on finding a means of building life upon liberty.... People
wished to live henceforth under a calm and radiant sky; they talked of
taking the gifts of God as they found them, idealising everything. From
that time it belongs truly to women to govern the higher world, the
realm of sentiment.... So many noble things lack the sap of life! They
will give that sap, that vitality, that soul. The sap of love brings
grapes from thorns. And thereby the transformation of the world is to
be achieved."
In short, women were to take life into their hands and turn it into a
fine art. They were to become priestesses in the Temple of the World, and
the object of worship was to be the Beautiful. They were to become the
creators of no less a thing than happiness. Our author quotes Ruskin's
saying about a woman that "the violets should not droop when she passes,
but burst into flower."
"Love is the sum of genius," the writer further quotes from
Schiller, _apropos_ of this astonishing outbreak of romantic
thought. "The formula," he says, "is this: to live, that is,
to love life, to attain a mastery of life, without allowing
it to crush or dominate us.... In those days they sincerely
studied to love life; they loved it, rejecting all negations
and obstructions, all that overwhelms and paralyses...."
To treat existence--as some tried to treat it in the sixteenth century
in Italy--from the point of view of the artist, must at least bring rich
fruits--though it depends perilously upon the artist!
It was to the newly liberated women of the chivalrous age that all
instinctively turned for the realisation of the universal longing. It
was for them to add some treasure to the world that they had so lately
entered. And more was done than perhaps we shall ever realise to make
life liveable and human by the women of the troubadour days and their
successors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Unhappily they lived too near to barbaric times, with the blood of
mediæval savages still running in their veins, to be able to understand
one essential ingredient in the magic philtre that they sought so eagerly.
They could not follow the counsel of their historian, who says "the woman
must steep her hands in beauty, fill her eyes with love, and then look
at things courageously and truthfully."[33] They followed and worshipped
Beauty, but they terribly sinned against Love.
"The first duty of woman," the author says, "is to exhibit in themselves
every lovable quality."
"Oh! is that all?" asked Barbara, with genial sarcasm.
"They overlaid life," he adds, "with that varnish of wonderful singular
sweetness which has never been wholly rubbed off."
Barbara listened in silence, whilst I read on.
"Love, and go straight on your way--that is the new formula--a very
effective one, since it converts dogmas into sentiments." Again this
definition: "The kingdom of God--that is a state in which every one's
actions would be prompted by love."
"It sounds nice," said Barbara, with a sceptical note in her voice.
"All the possible definitions of beauty apply also to life; life and
beauty are one and the same thing."
Barbara demurred at this.
But, after all, the somewhat grim-looking family which she adduced as
refutation were really not exactly alive in any serious sense of the
word. Truly living people are _always_ in some way beautiful. I left
her pondering this risky statement while I prudently hastened on.
Our gallant author seemed to see things after a fashion of his own. One
might, of course, summarily dismiss it as sentimentalism, but that would
be meaningless, for our whole life is founded on sentiment of one kind
and another. It is monstrous without it.
"He seems to think sentiment very important; more so than most men do,"
said Barbara, whose male relatives were mostly of a solid order.
A proverb, he points out, says that "one does not die of love: perhaps
not; but what we know with absolute certainty, what stares us everywhere
in the face in letters of fire and blood, is that one dies of the absence
of love."
And it is always to women he looks for the founding of the gentler
dispensation. He really does seem to appreciate us! He declares that we
are one and all, without exception, "artists in happiness!"
"Oh! then he has never met Aunt Rebecca," said Barbara conclusively.
* * * * *
Only a few more days in Provence were now before us, and we had worked
our way across country to the main line at Arles for the homeward journey.
It was a pleasure to find ourselves again in that strange flat country
of the Crau and the Camargue, with the grey city on its hill above the
Rhone.
We were wearied with the mad, sad doings of men and turned to the natural
features of the surrounding country for rest and relief. And they did
not fail us as far as interest was concerned. Only they, too, had their
dramas and their tragedies. Those strange solitudes had a wild and
stirring past; while the vast lagoons at the Rhone's mouth have a long
story all to themselves.
Whole volumes have been written about their formation and the geological
romance of this brilliant coast. Once, as we have seen, the Mediterranean
washed the cliffs at Beaucaire and Nimes, and swept up to the base of
the Alpilles. The country, in truth, seems to have retained something
of the sea-song in its wide reminiscent spaces.
There were deluges and avalanches, and all sorts of exciting events
of mountain and river; the Rhone and the Durance playing the principal
parts in this melodrama of the elements. Those impulsive heroes carried
off vast masses of stone and rubble from the mountains and covered the
low-lying land with the "wreckage of the Alps."
Then the secondary characters trooped along: the Herault, the Ley, and
other streams, and they helped to heap up great bars at the river's
mouth, so that the monster could not find his way to the sea without
much uneasy wandering; and always as he wandered, murmuring angrily,
more and more mud and stones were deposited to heighten the bars. And so
with the passing of the centuries the great lagoons were formed so big
and blue that the unwary traveller nearing Arles may almost mistake them
for the Mediterranean. When at last the sea is found, there is another
flinging down of Alpine spoils, for the difference in the weight and
in the temperature of the salt and the river waters at their meeting,
causes the river to drop what it carries rapidly--perhaps in joy at this
final home-coming to the brightest of all seas.
Louis XIV., it appears, built miles and miles of dykes, and Adam de
Craponne accomplished wonders of engineering work, and has become one of
the heroes of Provençal history; but still the waters now and again come
down in floods and do terrible damage. Indeed engineers are beginning
to think that the system of dykes is a mistaken one, for by confining
the river within narrow limits, the force is enormously concentrated and
presses on the dykes, while there is always a tendency to raise the bed
by the deposits.
Consequently the danger is constantly increased by the very means they
have taken to avert it.
"C'est comme une grande passion. Le Rhone a toujours été audessus des
forces de l'homme."
So must have thought the poor woman and her husband, guardians of the
shattered bridge of St. Bénézet at Avignon, for they told us that the
flood had risen to the second storey of their house. And this happened,
and was bound to happen at intervals, when the ice broke up in the
mountains. The Government might raise the dykes at vast expense till it
was tired; the river rose too. Better let it spread quietly over the land
and enrich it. But now the system was begun it could not be abandoned.
Very dangerous it would seem, a big river--or a big passion! And if ever
there was a big passion that river is possessed by it!
No dream too lovely, no joy too perfect to be within the scope of human
destiny while the spirit is held by the incantation of those waters.
All things are possible! That is the song of the Rhone.
It knows so much, this child of the mountains, born to all the secrets
of solitary places, and laden now with the sad, strange lore of its
journeyings by city and strand, by quiet lands where the plough traces
glistening furrows in the slant morning light, and the vines throw their
arms to the sun with all the grace and all the enchantment that made
men drunk in the old days when not one of them was afraid to be happy.
The race lived in communion with the things of the soil and the heavens,
so that their religion was an ecstatic sense of life and beauty; "that
tingling in the veins sympathetic with the yearning life of the earth,
which apparently in all times and places prompted some mode of wild
dancing."
Of the Bacchanalia we still have the fury and the terror, hidden in dark
places, poisoning existence, but the splendour and the grace, the sweet
freshness of those wild festivals are banished from the earth. How much
of beauty they have given to the world only an artist or a poet here
and there understands.
"It is from this fantastic scene," says one of the fraternity, "that
the beautiful wind-touched draperies, the rhythm, the heads suddenly
thrown back, of many a Pompeian wall-painting and sarcophagus frieze are
originally derived." And the same eye sees in the figure of Dionysus
the "mystical and fiery spirit of the earth--the aroma of the green
world is retained in the fair human body." "Sweet upon the mountains" is
the presence of the far-wandering god "who embodies all the voluptuous
abundance of Asia, its beating sun, its fair-towered cities."
To see the sun shining through the classic vine-leaves in a southern
land, is to begin to understand the emotions of the people who gave birth
to the myth of Dionysus; and we may "think we see the green festoons of
the vine dropping quickly from foot-place to foot-place down the broken
hill-side in the spring."
Some mirage of the ancient world comes to us with the picture. And
laughter--laughter, which was "an essential element of the earlier worship
of Dionysus," seems to be shaking the tendrils in some half literal,
half symbolical fashion. The living curves, the little merry whirls and
spirals are full of it.
The vine and the graver ivy crowned the white brow of Dionysus, plants
dear to the Hamadryads, "spinning or weaving with airiest fingers, the
foliage of the trees, the petals of the flowers, the skins of the fruits,
the long thin stalks on which the poplar leaves are set so lightly that
Homer compares them, in their constant motion, to the maids who sit
spinning in the house of Alcinous."
And by road and river are great growths of reeds, the plant of Dionysus
and the merry satyrs who make their pipes from the hollow stems.
It was surely this beautiful province of a beautiful land that inspired
the first conscious determined effort towards the art of living that
has been made by man since an evil fate had plunged him into the awful
martyrdom of the Middle Ages. The spirit that came into being at that
auspicious hour lingers like a presence. It is not due merely to bright
sky and clear air. There are skies as blue and air as clear in lands
where the very stones breathe forth tragedy. The Campagna of Rome is a
case in point, nor is the siren country about the Bay of Naples untouched
by this under-shadow.
Even here indeed, in Provence itself, the deep wound in the heart of
Life inflicted by mediæval superstition has never quite ceased to bleed,
and the country seems at moments to sadden and grow chill in the face
of the sun; but this is the tribute paid to the spiritual Cæsar of the
new Empire, and does not spring from the ancient genius of the country.
That genius presses upon the imagination, as if some hidden intelligence
were playing the part of generous host, and sending forth the parting
guest laden with gifts and valedictions.
These invisible hosts have no regard for any timid dread of enthusiasm
and faith. They boldly whisper of a new Creed and Cult, a Temple of
Happiness to be set up even in our own indignant land!
They are quite unabashed at the audacity of the proposition; at doubts
and limitations they laugh.
But the leave-taking traveller knows that he is under a spell, and asks
himself if these dreams of powers and destinies will live under grey
skies, grey creeds and customs.
Here it is easy to believe in exquisite audacities.
"Here a thousand hamlets laugh by the river-side, our skies laugh;
everything is happy, everything lives," as the poet Jasmin sings of his
native land.
At once inspiring and restful! This perfect balance is possible. Supremely
good things may be in contrast but not in contradiction. So at least
one believes in Provence.
The parting guest thinks wistfully of that delicious journey down stream,
of the happy company in the _Caburle_, in Mistral's Poem of the Rhone;
the old barge drifting with the current through the very heart of the
country of Romance. Every city and hamlet, every bridge and ruin, the
scene of a thousand stories....
He remembers with what an outburst the poet sings of the towers of
Avignon, as the barge comes in sight of the city, flame-tinted with the
setting sun:--
"e pinto
De resplendour reialo e purpurenco
Es Avignoun e lou Palais di Papo!
Avignoun! Avignoun sus sa grand Roco!
Avignoun, la galoio campaniero...."
("et pient
De splendeur royale, de pourpre splendide
C'est--Avignon et le Palais des Papes,
Avignon sur sa Roque géante!
Avignon la sonneuse de la joie.")
Always that word! Joie, joie! One meets it in story, in song, in the
voices of the people. Provence must certainly have been its birthplace--or
its sanctuary.
Driven from every other land, when the Goddess of Sorrow came to usurp
the temples of the ancient gods, reviled, feared, stricken to the heart,
the beautiful fugitive at last found shelter in the land of Love and
Chivalry.
THE END.
Index
A
_Abbaye de la Jeunesse_, 123
Abderrahman, 371
Acquitaine, 118, 370, 371
" Eudes, Duke of, 371
" Duke of, 146
" Walter of, 371
Agatha (Agde), 88, 90
Aigues Mortes, 86, 87, 88, 92, 390, 392
Aimar de Valence, Count, 326
Aix, 302, 329, 361
Albi, 256
" Council of, 356
Albigensian Wars, 119, 231, 245, 253, 258, 259, 356, 365
Alpilles, the, 25, 58, 72, 193, 286, 290, 309, 311, 315, 339, 408
" Sorceress of (Tavèn), 340, 344
Anjou, Count of, 338, 357
Ardouin-Dumazet, 41, 193, 194
Arles, 91, 92, 114, 161-170, 200, 275, 314, 329
" Aliscamps, 165
" Museum, 167, 168
" St. Honorat, Church of, 166
" St. Trophine, Church of, 163, 164, 168
Arqua, 75
Ascalon, 392
Asse, River, 83
Aubanel, Théodore, 113
"Aucassin and Nicolette," 206, 233-239
Aude, River, 84, 248
Augustus, Emperor, 21, 275
Aurelian Way, 90, 114
Avignon, 20, 31-48, 56, 58, 74, 75, 113, 192, 201, 347, 357, 358, 412
" Cathedral, 33
" Palace of the Popes, 31, 34, 36, 76-80
" Rocher du Dom, 33, 41
" " Hunchback of, 181-183
" St. Benézet, Bridge of, 41, 409
" St. Clara, Church of, 70, 72
Azalais de Rocca Martina, 246, 255-258
B
Balthazar, 316
Barbentane, 60
", Tours de, 193
Baring-Gould, 151, 260, 272
Barral, Count, 246, 255, 257, 329
Basque, 370
Baux, Les, 78, 193, 309, 312-320, 327, 338, 343, 362
" Princes of, 311, 316
" St. Vincent, Church of, 330
Beaucaire, 195, 200, 201, 206, 231-239, 243, 245, 375, 408
" Castle of, 194, 233
" Visigoth Tower, 235
Bebrykes, the, 87
Benedict XIII. (Pierre de Luna), 78
Berengaria des Baux, 125, 318
Bernard of the Three Ways, 266
Bernart de Ventadour, 120, 186
Bertrand de Born, 120
Béziers, 90, 134, 248
" Viscount of, _v._ Raimon of Toulouse,
Bouillabaisse, 173
Brescon, 88, 90
C
Cabaret, 256
Cadenet, 120
Camargue, the, 84, 86, 271, 329, 387-393
Carcassonne, 248, 249, 250, 251, 256, 392
" Siege of, 252-254, 258
" Cathedral of, 259
Cardinal Pierre, 255
Carthagena, 90
Celts, the, 89
Champagne, Countess of, 156
Charlemagne, 103, 104, 367, 371
Charles IV., Emperor, 74
" V., 78
" III., of France, 316
" Martel, 371
Chateauneuf, 52
Chivalry, 23, 27, 99, 100, 102, 145-148
" Origin of, 107-110
Clairette, 319
Clement V. (le Gotto), 358
" VI., 39, 73
Clovis, 203
Colonna, House of, 74
Conrad, 357
Conradin, 357
Courthéson, 134
Courts of Love, 72, 151, 154, 156, 157, 327, 338
Crau, the, 21, 25, 271, 272, 277, 314, 389
Crusades, the. 109, 233
D
Dante, 311
Daudet, 314
De Craponne, Adam, 409
De Foix, Comte, 254
De Noves, family of, 72
De Sades, family of, 72
Des Essars, Castle of, 64
Die or Dia, Countess of, 25, 120, 121
St. Dominic, 245
Domitian Way, 90
Drac, the, 378, 380
Dragignan, 134
Dumas, Alexandre, 79, 173
Durance, River, 24, 83, 84, 408
E
Elorn, valley of, 23
Esterelles, the, legend of, 176, 177
Etienette, 319
St. Eutropius, 165
F
Fabius Maximus, 89
Fanette, 72
Fanfarigoule, 271
_Farandole_, the, 174
Fauriel, 97, 104, 124, 125, 364, 370
Félibres, the, 22, 52, 113, 114, 346
" Queen of, 114
Flora, feast of, 175
Folquet of Marseilles, 246, 248
Forum Dimitti, 88
Francis I. and II., 361
Franks, the, 103, 367
Froissart, 37, 148, 358
G
Gard, River, 217, 218
" Pont du, 212, 214, 216, 218
Garde Freinet, 355
Giotto, 77, 79
Girard, 300
Greeks, the, 276, 277
Gregory of Tours, 103, 369
Grignan, Castle of, 20
" Madame de, 21
Grimaldi, 316, 355
Gui di Cavaillon, 326
Guilhelm de Cabestaing, 120, 125, 126, 318, 325
Guilhelm des Baux, 134, 324, 326
Guilhelm de Poitiers (William IX.), 23, 105, 365, 372
H
Hannibal, 114, 298
Henry II. and IV., 361
Heraclea, 92
Hérault, River, 84, 90, 408
Hercules, 25, 87, 203, 275
"Hospice des Mal-Mariés," 123
Hueffer, 121, 187
Hugo, Victor, 192
Hundred Years' War, 38, 39
Huns, the, 103
I
Iberians, the, 88
Illiberis, 87
Incourdoules, the, 177
" Golden Goat of, 177-181
Innocent III., 245
Isabel, Queen, 360
J
Joyeuse Garde, Château de, 23
Jeanne, Queen of Naples, 338, 358, 360
" de la Val, 360
L
Lamartine, 24
Languedoc, 38, 118, 245, 246, 276
_Langue d'Oc_, 175, 365, 372
Lenthéric, 92, 114
Le Puy, 134
_Lettres de mon Moulin_, 314
Ley, River, 408
Ligurians, the, 87, 88, 89, 275, 276, 277, 311
Limoges, 175
Limousin, 105, 371
Loba de Pegnautier, 258
Louis of Taranto, 358
" IX. (Saint), 233, 292
" XI., 361
" XIII., 316
" XIV., 361, 409
Luberon Mts., 58
Lyons, Gulf of, 84
M
Maguelonne, 88, 91, 263-268
" St. Peter, Church of, 263, 264, 268, 397, 399
Maillane, 21, 22, 298
Majour, Mont, 91
Manfred, 357
Man in the Iron Mask, the, 46
Marco Polo, 90
Marius, 286, 287, 292
Marseilles, 87, 89, 90, 275
St. Martha, 165, 195-197, 203, 347, 356
Martigues, 139, 141
Marthieu, Anselm, 52
Maulde de la Clavière, 154, 404
Mercoeur, Alazais, 126-129
" Ozil de, 127
Merimée, Prosper, 393
Miramas, 277
_Mireille_ or _Morèio_, 340-342, 316, 347, 387
Mistral, 20, 21, 24, 62, 84, 113, 298, 300, 340, 346, 375, 387, 412
Montferrat, 257, 334
Montpellier, 75, 263
Muret, 258
N
Narbonne, 87, 88, 89
Nimes, 114, 212, 214, 218, 268, 408
" Temple of the Nymphs, 268
" Tour Magne, 214
Nostradamus, 340, 344, 345
O
Olba, 87
Olbe, River, 84
Orange, 114, 134, 138, 165, 361
" William of, 361
P
Palavas, 263
Parma, 75
Passe Rose, (Cecilia des Baux), 311, 319
Pater, Walter, 234
Pedro, King of Arragon, 248
Peirol, 186
Petrarch, 52
" and Laura, 69-76
Philip of Valois, 37
" le Bel, 59, 358
" le Hardi, 92
Phœnicians, the, 88, 90, 196
"Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne," 266
Pons de Chapteuil, 120, 126-129
Porcelet, 318, 357
Port Vendre, 87
"Princesse Lointaine," 119
Provence, architecture of, 367-368
" Counts of, 288, 302
" History of, 352-363
" Language of, 363-367, 369-372
Pyrene, 87
Pyrenees, the, 24, 87, 251
R
Raimbaut d'Orange, 120, 121
Raimond Berenger I., 356
" " V., 356
Ranebaude, 318
Renard, Chateau, 193
René, King, 194, 197, 203, 318, 329, 344, 360, 361
" Castle of, 204, 206, 358, 361
Rhone, River, 20, 24, 41, 83, 84, 90, 194, 204, 206, 314, 389, 408,
409
" Poem of, 375-383, 412
Richard Cœur de Lion, 257
Rienzi, 56, 74
" Tower of, 56, 79
Rocamadour, 134
Romanin, Castle of, 72, 78
Romans, the, 89, 102, 162, 214, 276, 286, 292, 329
Roncevalles, 371
Rostand, 119
Roumanille, 113
Rousillon, 87, 88
" Count of, 125
Rowbotham, 108
Rudel, 119
S
St. Gilles, 88, 92
" Church of, 393
Saintes Maries, les, Church of, 329, 347, 387, 389, 393-399
St. Martin-en-Crau, 274, 277, 281, 282
St. Remy, 114, 275, 286, 288, 290, 300, 301, 302, 314, 340, 343, 344
" _Croix de Vertu, la_, 292
" _Maison de la Reine Jeanne_, 298
Salon, 134
Salyans, the, 275
Saracens, the, 89, 102, 263, 355
" dances of, 174
St. Saturnin, 165
Sermonda, 126
Sevigné, Madame de, 20, 65, 288
Sicilian Vespers, the, 357
Sieur de Bouche, le, 316, 351
Simon de Montfort, 231, 233, 243, 246, 248, 252, 253, 254, 258, 259
Smith, Justin, 126, 127, 148
Sordares, the, 88
Sordel, 318
Sorgue, River, 74
" Vale of, 52, 78
Strabo, 200
T
Tarascon, 165, 193-207, 231, 275
" Montagnette de, 91, 193
" St. Martha, Church of, 199, 204
Tarasque, the, 165, 195-198, 201, 202, 203, 347
Tech, River, 84
Toulouse, 103, 165, 246, 255, 368
" Raimon V., Count of, 255
" " VI., Count of, 231, 233, 243, 246, 248, 249, 253,
254, 357
Tour Fenestrella, la, 59
St. Trophimus, 165
Troubadours, the, 26, 27, 105, 113, 116, 118-122, 124, 176, 185,
186, 234, 246, 319, 339
U
Ugo del Baux, 256
Uzés, 58-60
V
Vaccares, the, Lake of, 390
Vacqueiras, 52, 328
" Raimbaut de, 52, 134, 324-334
Valmasque, 274
Vandals, the, 103
Varigoule, 274
Vaucluse, 52, 74
Vaudois, the, 356, 365, 366
Ventadour, 105, 134
" Eblos III., Count of, 105, 371
Ventoux, Mont, 22, 34, 77, 192, 271
Vidal, Pierre, 120, 255-258
Vidourle, River, 84
Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 37, 39, 41, 42
" St. André, Castle of, 42, 44, 46, 47
" Tower of Philip le Bel, 41
St. Virgilius, 166, 167
Visigoths, the, 89, 103, 235, 316
" Ataulphe, King of, 103
" Euric, King of, 103, 316
" Theoderick II., King of, 103
" Womba, King of, 266
Volscians, the, 88
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Pronounce as in the English word _crow_.
[2] Translation by Duncan Craig, author of _Miejour_.
[3] It is difficult to find any but contradictory evidence
about the frescoes of the Papal Palace, but most writers
ascribe them to Giotto or Giottino, or their school.
[4] "Memoires pour l'histoire naturelle de la province de
Languedoc."--ASTUC.
[5] Some of these originally Celtic names appear to have been
Romanised. My chief authorities for these details are Lenthérie
and Paul Mariéton.
[6] In this author I have found the clearest short account of
this period, and have taken the main facts in the following
few paragraphs from his much-quoted volume.
[7] It is a curious fact, and somewhat difficult for the
Western mind to realise, that just at this darkest moment
of European history--or at any rate during the three later
centuries of the period--the woman of Japan "held a higher
social and intellectual rank than she then did in any other
part of the world."
In an interesting work on "Feudal and Modern Japan," by Arthur
May Knapp, occur the following arresting passages:--
"Aston also, in speaking of the fact that the author of this
classic" (the "Jôsa Nikki") "professes to write as a woman,
calls attention to the extraordinarily preponderant influence
of woman in the field of ancient Japanese literature. It has
long been recognised that woman occupies a much higher place
in Japan than in any other Oriental country, but it is none
the less surprising, especially in view of the supposed lack
of intelligence among the sex in Japan to-day, to be told that
by far the larger number of works of the best age of Japanese
literature were of feminine authorship."
The writer quotes from the transactions of the Asiatic Society
of Japan to the same effect: "that a very large proportion of
the best writings of the best age of Japanese literature was
the work of women."
This golden age in Japan was from the eighth to the eleventh
century. During that time the men were chiefly engaged in
pedantic studies in Chinese, while the women were developing
a native and living literature. And during that time and for
centuries before, the women of the West had not so much as
arrived at the possession of human rights worthy the name!
[8] See "History of Provençal Poetry," Fauriel, Rowbotham,
Hueffer, etc.
[9] "When Aurora enshrined in her robe of satin, unbars without
noise, the doors of the morning."--JASMIN.
[10] B.C. 46.
[11] Gallienus made this edict of withdrawal A.D. 260.
[12] Mentioned by M. Fauriel in his work on Provençal Poetry.
[13] The story is given very fully by Duncan Craig in his book
_Miejour_ from which these verses and details are taken.
[14] This translation is taken from a small volume, entitled
"Some Poets of the People in Foreign Lands," by J. W. Crombie
(Elliot Stock).
[15] The translation of this and the following songs is given
by Hueffer in his book on the troubadours.
[16] "It rains my father."
"Ah! well, if it rains, it is good weather for the sowing."
[17] Mistral's poetical version of the story occurs in his
"Nerto" as follows:--
"Quand bastiguè lou Pont dóu Gard,
Lou prefachié dóu mau regard
S'èro reserva pèr soun comte
La proumiero amo, dis lou conte,
Que passarié sus lis arcas.
Pèr se tira dóu marrit cas,
Lou tour es devengu célèbre,
Jé bandiguèron uno lèbre.
Lou Diable, que tenié d'à ment,
Mando lis arpo vitamen;
Mai pensas-vous un pau sa tufo,
Entre counèisse qu'es la trufo!
De la maliço que n'aguè,
Sus la muraio l'empeguè.
Contro lou pont se vèi encaro.
Lorsqu'il bâtit le Pont du Gard,
L'entrepreneur au mauvais oeil
S'était réservé pour salaire
La première âme, dit le conte,
Qui passerait sur les grands arcs.
Pour se tirer du vilain cas,
Le tour est devenu célèbre,
On lâcha devers lui un lièvre.
Le Diable, qui était aux aguets,
Lance les griffes aussitôt;
Mais figurez-vous sa grimace,
Dès qu'il se reconnaît la dupe!
De la colère qu'il en eut,
Il le plaqua sur la muraille.
Contre le pont on peut le voir encore."
[18] The Crau is pronounced as the English word "crow."
[19] Lenthéric also mentions an analogous story in the Book
of Joshua (x. 7, 8, 9): "The Lord caused stones to fall from
the sky on the enemies of Israel." Moreover, it appears that
Joshua's camp was called Galgal (Hebrew, _rolled stone_), and
a few miles from Betheron has been found a "Crau" like that
of Provence.
[20] Presumably the rhyme has reference to "Le guet de Saint
Victor," a cavalcade that has taken place at Marseilles from
time immemorial, just after sunset, on the eve of the _fête_,
or procession itself; the latter a ceremony of imposing
magnificence.
[21] _Baux_ means _cliffs_ in Provençal.
[22] The name of the inn has unfortunately been changed since
the days of the discovery of the golden hair.
[23] The story has already been sketched in Chapter VII.
[24] See Justin Smith's _Troubadours at Home_.
[25] See "History of Provençal Poets," M. Fauriel.
[26] Ross and McGibbon.
[27] Of the Académie Française and Professor of the College
de France.
[28] Gaston Paris.
[29] Other verses of his on this occasion are quoted at head
of chapter.
[30] An ancient bed of river, now deserted by main streams.
[31] When the Rhone makes new mouths it deserts its old course,
leaving stagnant canals which are called Aigues Mortes.
[32] See illustrations, pp. 86 and 391.
[33] Maulde de la Clavière, "Women of the Renaissance."
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistent or incorrect accents and spelling in passages in French,
Italian, and Provençal have been left unchanged.
On page 42, "ferrurues de portes" should possibly be "ferrures de
portes".
On page 68, the Sonnet number should possibly be CCL.
On page 370, "Basque Words in Provençale" should possibly be "Basque
Words in Provençal".
The index entry for "Béziers, Viscount of" is missing page numbers.