Read Ebook: A Tour Through Old Provence by Forrest A S Archibald Stevenson

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Ebook has 586 lines and 41373 words, and 12 pages

Page

FOREWORD 5

INDEX 283

INDEX 285

FACING PAGE

INTERIOR OF CHAPEL OF ST. BENEZET, AVIGNON 48

GATEWAY, TARASCON 80

THE POSTERN, LES BAUX 116

MONTMAJOUR 144

THE ALYSCAMPS, ARLES 176

ROMAN THEATRE, ARLES 204

WOMAN OF ARLES 240

AVIGNON

AVIGNON

From whatever direction Avignon is approached, the dignity of its battlements, the profusion of its belfries, and the towering majesty of its remarkable palace, call forth the unstinted admiration of the most surfeited sightseer. But it is from the river that the finest view of the City of the Popes can be obtained.

The silent gliding waters of the winding Rhone flow in their fleet course past many a noble town and castle, but in the whole of their long voyage past none to compare with the glorious town of Avignon.

The richness of the surrounding fields and vineyards dotted with foliage of varied shape and hue, the extensive plains, with many a rugged promontory, are a fit setting for the stern and rigid palace that guards the Papal town. From the eastern horizon the noble Alps look across the great fertile plain to their distant neighbours the Cevennes. These two mountain chains enclose the extensive valley of the Rhone, a valley that has been inhabited in turn by Gauls, Greeks, and Romans, all of whom have left their marks indelible upon its face. This valley has been richly prized by those who set foot upon its soil. The mild climate, the rare atmosphere, and clear blue sky of Provence, have combined to produce populations profoundly appreciative of the joys and pleasures of existence, who have each in their own way given expression to their feelings and emotions in their arts and letters. The Romans sought expression in their buildings, the Goths in rich and fanciful designs, and the mingled race of Proven?als in their songs and lays.

Here is a land that teems with the works of man's imagination, met with continually in the massed fortresses and embattled monasteries, the Roman playgrounds and places of amusement, the peaceful cloisters and places of worship.

Avignon, the Avenio of the Romans, was a Celtic city before its conquest by the great empire-makers of the pre-Christian era; but its character was changed out of all recognition by the mediaeval inhabitants of the town. It is known to-day as the City of the Popes, and its fame is inseparably connected with the seventy years during which seven of the Popes had their residence within its protecting walls. The "Babylonish Captivity," as it was called by Petrarch, which lasted from 1305 to 1375, made history not only for Avignon but for the rest of Christendom.

The events which led up to the serious step of breaking the continuity of the Papal residence at the Holy See of Rome are worth recalling. During the latter part of the first millennium of the Christian era the power of the Papacy had assumed alarming sway over the many small States into which Europe had become divided after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Two of the most powerful kings in Europe, Philip the Fair of France and Edward the First of England, began at the same time to lay an arbitrary hand upon the revenues of the Church. The English King resisted the commands of the Pope, who was compelled to give way. Philip was not so fortunate in his quarrel with Rome, which in the first year of the next century came to a head. A legate sent by Boniface to Philip behaved himself so insolently that the French Monarch placed him under arrest. The Pope, enraged at the indignity offered to his representative, issued a series of Bulls to the King and Clergy of France, in one of which he set up the claim that the King of France was subject to Rome in temporal as in spiritual affairs. This was the first time that such a contention had been explicitly put forward in an official document, and Philip at once replied by a rude letter, by publicly burning the Papal Bulls, and by calling together the three great Orders of his Kingdom, the Nobles, Commons, and Clergy. This was the first Convocation in France of the States General, an assembly which four centuries later was to play so important a part in the Great Revolution.

History is conflicting with regard to the character of this Princess, and she has her partisans to-day, in the same way as Mary, Queen of Scots, whose tragic story is very similar.

Joan, or Joanna, reared at Naples in the midst of every luxury and refinement that the age could offer, was in her early years betrothed to her cousin Andrew , who, although brought up along with his wife at the Neapolitan court, inherited the rough tastes and barbarous manners of his native country.

The rumours connecting the widow with the crime soon spread, and Louis of Hungary, brother of the murdered man, invaded Naples to seek revenge. Joan, who had taken to herself another husband, fled with him to Provence to take shelter under the Papal See and to raise money and an army for the protection of her kingdom.

The Pope, after a solemn investigation into the circumstances of the murder, acquitted Joan of the charge. Taking advantage of her pressing need, he bargained with her to sell Avignon to him for eighty thousand crowns. This transaction did little credit to Clement, for although he and his successors retained the town thus acquired, the money was never paid--possibly, as is

thought, on the ground that Joan was amply compensated by receiving the Papal absolution for the murder of her husband. Certainly Clement would have no scruples, for his Court was as licentious as it was magnificent. Amidst its regal splendour gay and beautiful women played an important part, the Pope himself not impervious to their influence. The Countess of Turenne, suspected of being one of his mistresses, and as rapacious as she was handsome, unblushingly sold positions and preferments procured by her ascendancy.

Joan's subsequent matrimonial career, although full of variety , was unproductive of issue; and her presumptive heir, Charles, Duke of Durazzo, offended at her last venture in matrimony, took forcible possession of Naples, and, to preclude all opposition to his newly acquired sovereignty, the deposed Joan was by his orders removed from his path by assassination.

Avignon was ancient and illustrious before the Popes descended upon it and added a fresh and brilliant page to its already voluminous history. Far back in pre-Roman times, and even before the coming of the adventurous Phoceans, it is probable that some prehistoric Celts had built a city on these same rocky foundations beside the silvery Rhone. The Phoceans from Marseilles saw its possibilities, for under them it became one of the richest cities in the Narbonne, and when, at their invitation, the Romans overran the valley and drove out the barbarians who threatened it and every other fertile spot in Europe, they added further to the fame of Avignon.

Very few vestiges of the ancient Roman town remain to-day. Successive ages quarried amongst the massive Roman constructions for material to rebuild their town according to their altering needs. In the Rue des Grottes, a narrow little street, two blocks away from the west front of the Papal Palace, the cellars of the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century houses are formed by the arcades of what must have been a vast Roman building; and minute investigators of the town have fancied they could trace the foundations of a theatre near to the Place St. Pierre. But coins and fragments of marble mosaics, Greek and Latin inscriptions, have been found in plenty all through the city, and are now housed and guarded in the Calvet Museum, one of the chief attractions of the town.

That Avignon should be lacking in more important Roman monuments such as are the pride of the neighbouring towns of Arles, N?mes, Orange, and others is quite easily accounted for. When one reads of the numerous invasions and sieges which the city suffered at the hands of vast barbarian hordes, who swept over the land like a devastating tornado during the fourth century of our era, and of the perpetual internecine strife that during the dark ages took place between Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, and Saracens, one no longer feels astonished at the absence of Roman remains of any magnitude.

The true history of the Avignon of to-day starts in the twelfth century, when, under circumstances of which the details are now obscured by the mists of time, it became a republic with its own laws and privileges, endowments and revenues, only restricted by the overlordship of its Bishop.

The intermarriages of the feudal families, their numerous offspring, and the frequent divisions and subdivisions of territories and estates led to endless changes in the map of the southern counties of France. The quarrels and disputes of the Counts of Toulouse, Provence, and Forcalquier as to their rival rights of suzerainty over the town led to the setting up of a republic in Avignon.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame des Doms, which at first glance might be mistaken for a continuation of the great mass of buildings which constitute the Palace of the Popes, is one of the earliest monuments or buildings in the town. Standing on an elevated site, the summit of the great Rock of the Doms, it was constructed early in the twelfth century, and remains to-day a choice specimen of Romanesque architecture. Like all the buildings in Provence, it has been carefully studied and severely criticised, various and conflicting opinions have been expressed about it, and different dates assigned to it. From the apex of the small octagonal structure that surmounts the great square tower of the Cathedral, a gigantic gilded figure of the Virgin looks down upon the town and surrounding country.

It is, as the French writers would say, "in the taste of the eighteenth century," hideous and out of place, a blatant, gaudy anachronism that vividly illustrates the truth of the old adage, "Tastes differ." Fragments of an old Latin inscription, removed from its porch and now in the Calvet Museum, have been cited by some as giving a history of this building. This stone document claims that the church was "founded by St. Martha, consecrated by St. Ruf, enlarged by the first Christian Emperor Constantine, destroyed by the Saracens, saved by Charles Martel, and restored by the munificence of Charlemagne, and that Jesus Christ came to consecrate it with His own hand."

But this legend has been proved to be as unreliable as so many other ecclesiastical traditions of mediaeval times. The porch has also been the subject of controversy. The pillars with their beautiful Corinthian capitals are either the remains of some more ancient building, probably a classic temple, or perhaps mediaeval copies of the antique. Above the door are the faded and damp-stained remains of a fresco of the fourteenth century. The figures of God the Father and two supporting angels can be made out, and bear strong traces of Byzantine mannerisms. If they are, as has been suggested, the work of Simone Martini of Siena, he displays in this work little of the genius of his great contemporaries in art.

And here it must be said that Avignon is not so rich in early paintings or frescoes of the first order as one would expect so mediaeval a town to be.

The church is lit entirely from the dome, and the light that streams down from the eight windows above the choir is hardly sufficient to penetrate into the five deep vaulted bays of the nave. The style of the whole interior, for want of a better name, is called Romanesque, a style of the transition period between the rigid simplicity of the Roman times and the flowing ornamentation of the Middle Ages. Many of the most cherished monuments of the Cathedral were desecrated, pillaged, and destroyed during the Revolution, Spanish prisoners were lodged in it, and generally it was about as badly used as any of the religious buildings in Provence.

It, however, still retains the fine marble chair which is assumed to be the ancient Papal throne, with the lion of St. Mark and the ox of St. Luke carved in deep relief on either side of it.

In his later years John got into sore trouble with the theological authorities by promulgating the heretical doctrine "that the Saints at death fell asleep and did not enjoy the beatific vision till after the resurrection." Whether this was a genuine conviction with him or no, he was forced by the religious opinion of his contemporaries to make a semblance of retracting it, but his monument seems to suggest that he believed it was to be his only resting-place until the last great day. His religious intolerance brought the Papacy into grave disrepute, but his grasping avarice greatly benefited its treasury, for at his death it was found that he had amassed for it eighteen millions of gold florins in bullion and about seven millions in plate and jewels.

From the garden of the Rocher des Doms, which rises abruptly to a height of three hundred feet above the river and looks across the island of Barthelasse to the town of Villeneuve, there stretches far into the distance a landscape which excites the imagination of the romantic poet, delights the eye of the artist, and even moves the prosaic to express themselves in superlatives.

The old bridge of St. Benezet, or, to be more exact, the three arches that remain of it, is a distinguished relic of

the twelfth-century Avignon. It ends abruptly about two-thirds of the distance across the left branch of the river, which at this point is divided by the low-lying island of Barthelasse. Grey in colour, desolate, for traffic has long ceased to clank and rattle over its narrow causeway, this "fragment" gives a very good idea of what the ancient bridge must have been when it extended completely over the two channels of the river, and the island that divides them, right up to the foot of the menacing square tower of Philip the Fair that guards the opposite bank.

The silent flowing river with unruffled surface breaks into sound as it rushes past these remaining piers. The gurgling swish of the hurrying waters and the sparkling little ripples occasioned by the resistance of the solid masonry, are the only breaks in the calm monotonous silence with which the river makes its way down the great flat valley to the sea. The ancient bridge is deserted, "all the world" no longer dances, if ever it did attempt such a feat, upon the parapetless ten-foot way; and the ancient rhyme--

"Sur le pont d'Avignon, tout le monde danse, danse, Sur le pont d'Avignon, tout le monde danse en rond,"

would to-day be more applicable to the little white ripples that dance and sparkle in the sunlight as they burst forth from under the venerable archways. Fifteen other arches continued the bridge in days gone by, but the townsfolk got tired at last of continually making good the damage unceasingly inflicted by their enemies upon this highway, and since the latter part of the eighteenth century it has remained the fragment that one sees to-day.

The Bridge of Avignon when it completely spanned the Rhone was not complete without its legend, a pretty little Proven?al story that has lasted until to-day. The simple folk of Avignon relate how a little shepherd boy from Viverais, higher up the river, heard of the many accidents which befell the inhabitants, who had no other means of crossing the Rhone save by boats, accidents which resulted in great loss of life. This little shepherd, highly favoured by the Saints, was, like Joseph of old, a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions--dreams and visions that roused and inspired him to go to the rescue of the hapless folk whose lives were in peril every time they crossed the rapids of the Rhone in their frail craft. Making his way on foot along the river bank to Avignon, he presented himself to the Bishop of the town; told him of his dreams and urged him to construct a bridge. Unfavourably received both by the Bishop and the Provost, the former laughing at and the latter chastising him, he demonstrated the inspired nature of his mission by carrying to the river bank with his unaided hands a huge boulder of rock to serve as the foundation-stone.

This miraculous act, together with his passionate pleading, roused the townspeople, and without further delay the bridge was commenced. Poor Benezet, dying before his life-work was completed in 1177, was canonised by the grateful inhabitants, who have since done full justice to the little shepherd boy to whom the town owed one of its most useful glories and lasting treasures. A tiny chapel dedicated to St. Benezet stands upon the first pier of the ancient bridge, and mass is still said there every 14th of April, the Saint's Day.

A lot of water has flowed under the arches of the bridge since the days when brave knights in shining armour, proud priests in sumptuous robes, poets, painters, soldiers, courtiers, and the thousand and one mortals of commoner clay passed over the realised dream of the shepherd lad. It has served its turn, and now belongs entirely to the bygone age of chivalry and romance.

One of its contemporaries still exists near the Avignon of to-day--the ruined church of St. Ruf that stands on the Tarascon road just outside the city walls. It is all that is left of a twelfth-century monastery, built by some canons of the Cathedral, who, on separating from their brother clergy, retired to this spot, whither an ancient oratory, said to have been founded by St. Ruf, attracted them. The Sanctuary and tower, or belfry, are all that remain of the once extensive series of buildings, but the carved capitals of the columns and fine bold apse bear evidence that it was a church equal in beauty of workmanship to the Cathedral itself.

The buildings already mentioned are the oldest in Avignon, for the ramparts that exist to-day replace the older ones which were destroyed after the great siege in 1226. This siege was one of the last incidents in a war which for wellnigh twenty years wrought devastation throughout the southern provinces of France.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century there existed a sect known as the Valdenses, or Albigenses, which had become so strong that Princes and Nobles were embracing its tenets to the vexation of the Papacy. What exactly were the beliefs of these heretics it is difficult to determine, as the accounts handed down to us come from prejudiced sources.

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