MONTPELLIER TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE,
98½ MILES
(158 KILOMETRES)
DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE
Kil. Miles.
=Montpellier= to Lunel =22= 13½
[=Lunel= to Aigues-Mortes and back =32= 20]
=Lunel= to Nîmes =24= 15
[=Nîmes= to Pont-du-Gard and back =44= 27¼]
[=Nîmes= to Beaucaire and Tarascon-sur-Rhone =24= 15]
[=Tarascon-sur-Rhone= to Avignon =23= 14¼]
By going north from Nîmes to Avignon, and omitting the Riviera, the
tour can be shortened by five or six days.
[=Nîmes= to Avignon =42= 26]
=Nîmes= to St. Gilles =19= 11¾
=St. Gilles= to Arles =18= 11¼
=Arles= to Salon =40= 25
=Salon= to St. Cannat =18= 11¼
=St. Cannat= to Aix-en-Provence =17= 10¾
NOTES FOR DRIVERS
=Montpellier to Nîmes.=--Level, and nearly every road across the
delta of the Rhone is quite flat.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE AT TARASCON.
On the Rhone.]
=Pélissanne to Aix-en-Provence.=--An undulating road, with a long run
down into Aix-en-Provence.
PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE
=Montpellier.=--A cheerful and prosperous city; new streets and wide
boulevards--(1) Historic School of Medicine in former Episcopal
Palace; (2) Musée Fabre contains very fine collection of pictures;
(3) Cathedral dates from 1364, choir and other parts 1857; (4) Tour
des Pins; (5) Porte du Peyrou, seventeenth century.
=Lunel.=--Small town, with a partially Romanesque church.
=Aigues-Mortes.=--In the Carmargue. A very remarkable medieval walled
city, founded by St. Louis (IX.); fortifications built by
Philippe-le-Hardi in thirteenth century.
=Nîmes.=--Has some of the finest Roman remains in France--(1)
Amphitheatre; (2) Maison Carrée; (3) Porte d’Auguste; (4) Porte de
France; (5) Roman baths and the Tour Magne; (6) Cathedral of St.
Castor (eleventh century); (7) Pont-du-Gard, 14 miles north.
=St. Gilles.=--In the Carmargue. A decayed port, with a remarkable
Romanesque church.
=Arles.=--A large town, with a history going back to the Greek
occupation of the ports of Southern France--(1) Roman amphitheatre;
(2) Greek theatre; (3) remains of Roman Forum; (4) Roman tower of
La Trouille; (5) Museum in Church of St. Anne; (6) Cathedral of St.
Trophime, with cloisters; (7) Avenue des Alyscamps, with stone
sarcophagi; (8) and (9) Churches of St. Antoine and St. Honorat.
=Salon.=--A small town on the edge of the Crau; Churches of St.
Michel (thirteenth century) and St. Laurent (fourteenth century);
also château of same date as the latter.
=Pélissanne.=--A small town, with a church and clock-tower, both of
the sixteenth century; also ruins of a château of the twelfth and
fifteenth centuries.
=St. Cannat.=--See Section XIX.
Montpellier does not boast many antiquities, but it has some spacious
promenades and boulevards which give a dignity and charm to the city.
Hare, writing before some of the more modern streets had assumed their
present appearance, says:
‘No words can express the dulness of the place, or the savage
ferocity of the mistral which blows there; as a winter resort it
possesses no advantages whatever.’
The place became prosperous in the thirteenth century with the founding
of the School of Medicine, which is famous to this day. It is housed in
the buildings of the Episcopal Palace, and its frontage is still
machicolated.
The Musée Fabre in the Esplanade contains the best provincial collection
of pictures in France next to Lille. _It is open on week-days--except
Mondays--from 9 to 12, and 1.30 to 4 or 5; Sundays, 11 to 4 or 5._
The Cathedral, with a very odd-looking porch, is the church of a
Benedictine abbey founded in 1364. Three of the original towers at the
angles of the nave survive; the fourth and the Gothic choir were
rebuilt about 1857.
[Illustration: TOWN PLAN NO. 20.--MONTPELLIER.]
The Tour des Pins is a survival of the early fortifications of the town,
now restored. The inscription is to the memory of Jayme, the conqueror
of Arragon.
The Jardin des Plantes, founded in 1593 by Henry IV., is the earliest in
France.
A triumphal arch, called the Porte du Peyrou, was put up at the end of
the seventeenth century to the glory of Louis XIV. The Promenade de
Peyrou, begun about the same time and completed in 1785, has a statue of
the same Louis, and a great prospect towards the sea and the Cevennes
across the level country bordering the mouth of the Rhone.
The impression one gets of Montpellier in a short visit is that of a
city mainly composed of buildings that are all of a uniformly
creamy-white colour, and that the only other colour besides the dusty
green of the foliage is the bright red of the soldiers’ uniforms and the
gaudy colour of advertisements.
THE ROAD TO NÎMES
Keeping to the edge of the plain, the road goes eastwards to Lunel,
which stands in the great vine-growing plain. In the Place de la Liberté
one may see a small facsimile of the New York statue of Liberty by
Bartholdi. The church is Romanesque in part.
From Lunel a détour of a most profitable character may be made to
Aigues-Mortes (meaning ‘stagnant waters’), one of the dead ports of that
blighted land called the Carmargue. The road passes through
Marsillargues and St. Laurent-l’Aigouze, and for the last three
kilometres runs parallel with the Beaucaire Canal, which has to some
extent reanimated the ancient walled town from which St. Louis embarked
for the Holy Land in 1248 and 1270. The lofty walls and square towers,
without any machicolation to relieve their grim strength, were built by
Philippe-le-Hardi, and are said to have been copied from Ascalon, in
Syria, even as the Château Gaillard was based on the experience Richard
I. gained in the Holy Land. It was the Crusades that seem to have
brought the town into being, and, like everything connected with those
unsuccessful efforts to roll back the Mohammedan power, Aigues-Mortes,
being surrounded by fever-producing swamps, was doomed to failure from
the first day St. Louis founded it. But the constant depletion of the
population in the past--at the rate, it is said, of five or six a day in
the spring out of a population of 1,500--has given the modern antiquary
a walled medieval town only comparable to Carcassonne and Avignon, and
in some respects of greater interest than either.
[Illustration: No. 17. MONTPELLIER TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE.]
From Lunel to Nîmes the country is a vast vineyard, with here and there
an Aleppo or an umbrella pine or a few olives.
NÎMES
To the tourist who has never seen Roman remains outside a museum, or has
only looked dully at a few foundations of Roman walls _in situ_, Nîmes
brings the reality of Rome’s power before his eyes with such
overwhelming vividness that he begins to forget the remoteness of the
civilization which raised these enduring monuments. That the vast
amphitheatre, the perfect temple to Caius and Lucius Cæsar, the gateway
called the Porte d’Auguste, the complete aqueduct known as the
Pont-du-Gard, and the Roman tower, 90 feet high, called the =Tour Magne=,
date from the early years of the Christian era, or even before the birth
of Christ, seems at first easy to grasp. But these structures stand so
imposingly among the buildings of 2,000 years later which have grown up
around them that there comes in time a feeling almost of incredulity.
Perhaps some clever French architects have done most of the building,
one thinks; but a glance at the stonework of any of these great works
shows that the restoration that has taken place has been of a trifling
character, the main work in the case of the arena having been the
clearing away of the later accretions which were hiding the Roman
fabric.
It was in 121 B.C. that the capital of a Gaulish tribe became the
_Nemausus_ of the Romans. For over five centuries it remained a Roman
city of the greatest importance, a period equal to England’s history
from the crude times of Richard II. to the present year. So much did the
Romans appreciate their new colonies in Provincia (now Provence) that
they even considered the transference of the capital of the Empire to
the banks of the Rhone. One need not wonder, therefore, at the
magnificence and the permanent character of the buildings they erected.
At Orange, at St. Rémy, and at Arles the survivals are equally
forceful, and the most ill-informed who gaze upon them go away with an
impression of Roman power so vivid that they cannot ever again regard
archæology as a musty science.
[Illustration: TOWN PLAN NO. 21.--NÎMES.]
In its modern aspect Nîmes is a thriving city with a busy trade in wine
and silk. The main streets are wide and cheerful, with trees which are a
boon during the hot time of the year.
The chief features of the town are:
1. The Roman Amphitheatre.--It is smaller than those of Arles,
Capua, Verona, and Rome, but is the best preserved in the whole
world. It was built in the first century, and the enormous stones
are so perfectly cut that, although laid without cement, they have
not been disturbed throughout the 1,800 years of change that have
passed since the building of the arena. The seats allowed about
22,000 people to watch the gladiatorial and other contests that
took place. The arrangements for flooding the arena for aquatic
displays are said by some authorities to be discoverable. At the
present time bull-fights take place in the arena on Sundays from
April onwards throughout the summer, and the less dangerous
_Courses Libres_, when anyone can attempt to obtain a rosette from
the bull’s head, are frequently given.
2. The Maison Carrée is a Roman temple, built between A.D. 1 and
14, and dedicated to Caius and Lucius Cæsar, adopted sons of the
Emperor Augustus. It is the best-preserved Roman temple in the
world, and after having been used as a church, a municipal hall,
and a stable, it is now well restored, and contains a very fine
collection of Roman remains.
3. The Porte d’Auguste bears an inscription stating that it was
built in 16. B.C. It was a gateway of the Roman line of
fortifications which surrounded the city.
4. The Porte de France, another Roman gateway, of much more simple
character, stands at the end of the Rue de France.
5. The Roman Baths and thermæ in the _Jardin de la Fontaine_, on
the north side of the town, with, above them, the Tour Magne, a
Roman tower, 90 feet in height, which formed a part of the
defences of the city, and was utilized as a watch-tower in the
Middle Ages.
6. The Cathedral of St. Castor, dating from about the eleventh
century, has been reconstructed and restored so much that the
western façade is the chief survival of the original church. Its
richly carved frieze, showing scenes from the Book of Genesis, is
of great interest.
7. The Pont-du-Gard (about fourteen miles north from Nîmes, near
the town of Ramoulins) is one of the most imposing Roman works in
the world. It is part of the aqueduct, twenty-five miles long,
which brought water to Nîmes, and is still practically perfect
to-day. It was built in 19 B.C., in the time of Agrippa; some
repairs were made in 1702, and again in 1855. From the steep sides
of the river one can easily reach the top of the aqueduct, and walk
the whole length of the waterway or on the slabs of stone which
cover it in for a considerable distance. Looking down over the
orange-coloured stone of the superimposed arches, one sees the
myrtle-green waters of the River Gardon rushing between grey rocks
156 feet below.
Remains of the reservoir to which the water was led still survive
in Nîmes.
THE ROAD TO ARLES
From Nîmes the road is practically level all the way to Arles, whether
one goes by St. Gilles or direct through Bellegarde.
ST. GILLES
The St. Gilles route is only seven kilometres longer, and the slightly
increased distance will not be regretted when the remarkable church has
been seen. It was planned on a vast scale, and, if carried out, would
have been one of the finest Byzantine churches in France; but for some
reasons, perhaps connected with the decline of St. Gilles as a port
owing to the constant silting up of the Rhone delta, or possibly owing
to war or pestilence or a weakening of religious enthusiasm, the great
structure was never finished, and a smaller church in the Gothic style
is all that came to completion. It embodies, however, the splendid
western façade of the earlier scheme, and the details of its columns,
its mutilated statues and carved enrichments, are finer even than those
of St. Trophime at Arles. The abbot of the monastery, which had been
founded by St. Egidius in the sixth century, administered justice seated
between the grotesque lions of the portal, and the charters often began
with, ‘_Sedente inter leones_.’ The crypt, the tomb of St. Gilles and
his altar, the twelfth-century sacristy, and the _Vis de S. Gilles_, a
remarkably fine newel staircase, should all be seen. There is also a
restored Romanesque house in the town of St. Gilles.[J]
It should be remembered that historical and geological evidence prove
that the flat marshy country called the Carmargue was in Roman times a
beautiful district of rivers, tree-grown islands, and extensive seaways.
No doubt there were marshes at the mouth of the Rhone then, but that
mouth was a long way north of the present outlet, and the area must have
been comparatively small before some of the large inlets were silted up
and became fever-breeding swamps. Everywhere one goes in the Carmargue,
from Arles to Aigues-Mortes, St. Gilles or Les Saintes-Maries, the same
tale is told of prosperous ports becoming land-locked and
fever-stricken. To-day the flat treeless land is cultivated where the
swamps have dried up, but it is a sad desert even under a cloudless sky.
In the summer there is dust everywhere, and in the winter the ground has
a tendency to become a morass.
ARLES
is entered from the west side through the old suburb of Trinquetaille,
the business quarter of the Roman city, and the Rhone is then crossed on
a semi-suspension bridge of lattice girders, on which, when the mistral
blows, it is scarcely possible to keep one’s feet. It is on the east
side of the river--the official and patrician quarter--that the
thrilling relics of Greek and Roman Arles survive.
In the importance of these ancient monuments Arles is a close rival to
Nîmes, and in some ways Arles is pre-eminent.
The origin of the name is generally considered
[Illustration: TOWN PLAN NO. 22.--ARLES.]
to be the Celtic ‘Ar-lath,’ meaning a wet place, and its position at the
mouth of the Rhone, with the island which is now the corner of the
Carmargue opposite, was so advantageous to traders that, long before the
Romans conquered Provence, earlier even than the founding of Marseilles
by the Greeks from Phocæa, there was a busy commercial town at Arles,
well known to the Phœnician traders of the Mediterranean. When the
Romans found it necessary to conquer Provence they found a Greek city at
Arles, and the ruins of the beautiful theatre, built before the Roman
occupation was a reality, impress on the mind the change which took
place, for within a few paces of the theatre there stands the
amphitheatre--the time-defying evidence of the power of Rome. The
amphitheatres and most of the other Roman remains in Provence are due to
the Imperial policy of ‘panem et circenses,’ and what the huge arenas
really meant is vividly brought to mind by Mr. Theodore Cook.
‘For four centuries,’ he writes, ‘the world was ransacked “to make
a Roman holiday.” Whole populations taken prisoner were butchered
for the delectation of society. Whole nations were ground down with
taxes to provide extravagantly gorgeous details for the spectacle.
Whole tracts of country were laid waste to supply the animals that
furnished jaded epicures with novel forms of death or fiercer
appetite for carnage. Unequal combats were not enough. Defenceless
families were cast to the lions to be publicly devoured on the
excuse of having professed a religion that was considered
politically dangerous.
‘It is difficult to believe all this even among the sinister
shadows of the Coliseum. At Arles it seems impossible. Yet the
fashions of Rome were the fashions of the provinces--the difference
was in quantities alone; and there was not a fragment of that huge
building where the public circulated which was not given up to the
gratification of their passions--sometimes the vilest.’
The beauty of the women of Arles astonishes the stranger even when he is
prepared by the statement of the fact in all guide-books. The classic
features of their Greek ancestry are constantly reproduced to-day,
although in the men the intermingling of Roman, Saracen, and Frank has
destroyed all resemblance to the Hellenic type. In a book of this
character one is compelled to summarize where expansion is so inviting,
and the reader is advised to study Mr. Cook’s two volumes entitled ‘Old
Provence’ if he wishes to know more of the story of the region which
teems with evidence of the Roman occupation.
The historic monuments of Arles are therefore briefly tabulated below:
1. The Roman Amphitheatre, begun, it is said, about 46 B.C., and
capable of holding an audience of about 30,000.
2. The Greek Theatre, of which two beautiful columns of the
proscenium, the bases of two others, and the semicircular tiers of
seats, remain. It was built before the Christian era, and prior to
the Roman occupation of the city. The lovely Venus of Arles, now in
the Louvre at Paris, was dug up among the ruins of this theatre.
3. The Remains of the Roman Forum, commenced by Constantine II.,
embedded in the walls of an hotel in the Place du Forum.
[Illustration: THE GREEK THEATRE AT ARLES.
The two pillars formed part of the proscenium, and in the Middle Ages
were used as a gibbet.]
4. The Roman Tower of La Trouille (near the Musée Réattu--a small
picture-gallery) is all that remains of the magnificent palace
built by the Emperor Constantine between 306 and 330 A.D.
5. The Archæological Museum in the Church of St. Anne contains a
magnificent Roman collection, including carved sarcophagi, altars,
statues, and inscriptions.
6. The Cathedral of St. Trophime is opposite the museum. The
Romanesque façade, dating from 1221, is a beautiful piece of
architecture, enriched with statues and a bold arch supported by
columns. The cloisters are intensely interesting, having been built
in different periods--north and east sides Romanesque of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, west about 1380, and south about
1505.
7. The Avenue des Alyscamps is the Roman cemetery of the city, just
without the ramparts, put up during the reign of the Emperor
Constantine. On either side of the avenue there are altogether 153
stone sarcophagi, the 33 large ones having retained their lids. The
Alyscamps, when consecrated as a Christian burial-place, became so
famous that bodies were brought great distances in order that they
might enjoy the privileges supposed to be the lot of those who were
buried there.
8. Church of St. Antoine, an interesting Gothic building.
9. Church of St. Honorat, partially eleventh century.
THE ROAD TO AIX-EN-PROVENCE
leaves Arles from the Avenue Victor Hugo, and after winding a little for
about twelve kilometres, with trees interfering with the view, goes due
east in a straight line across the open plain called La Crau
(pronounced ‘Crow’). It is a strange level waste of round stones, very
uniform in size, which the torrents of innumerable ages have brought
down from the Alps. The early peoples of Provence were mightily
impressed with these monstrous pebbles, and Strabo has preserved the
legend that Zeus rained them down on the earth to scatter the Ligurian
tribesmen who often attacked the adventurous Phœnician traders and
colonizers. The heat of the sun on the mass of stones, which has a depth
averaging from 30 to 45 feet, produces the phenomenon of the mirage, and
the conditions of wind and temperature are always inclined to be
different to less exposed places. A clear sunrise over the mountains
north-east of the Crau is a memorable sight. The desert of stones,
broken here and there with lines of cypresses, is full of a strange
shadowiness under the crimson-streaked sky as the eastern light grows in
intensity, and one half expects to see a caravan of camels and the
burnous of Arabia in place of the country cart of the French peasant.
The curiously isolated ridge called Les Alpines is prominent to the
north wherever one goes between Nîmes and Salon.
Salon is a cheerful town at the very edge of the Crau. The main street
has a bright and almost Parisian touch, with its numerous cafés having
their tables under the shade of old plane-trees. There is a
fourteenth-century château, and in the Church of St. Laurent, a Gothic
building of the same period, is the tomb of Michel de Notre Dame,
Catherine de Medici’s favourite astrologer. Another church is dedicated
to St. Michael, and is a century earlier.
At the fork just beyond Salon the turning to the right is taken to
Pélissanne, a village with tall cream-washed houses. In the centre one
goes to the right and immediately afterwards to the left. Beyond this
the road runs through pine-covered hills to St. Cannat, and finally
through open country down a long descent into Aix-en-Provence.