Romantic Cities of Provence. Mona Caird
and Celts. But the Roman genius for government and colonisation produced its usual brilliant results. Theatres, amphitheatres, baths, temples and palaces sprang up in the Celtic city which the traders from Marseilles had thought so gloomy, and for many a long day Narbonne was the most important of flourishing ports in Gaul always excepting Marseilles the immortal.
At Narbonne have been found "monumental stones" with small caps carved upon them. When a Roman left in his will that certain of his slaves should be liberated, a cap was carved upon their tombs, and so it has become "the cap of liberty," the symbol of a freedom greater than the freest Roman ever dreamt of.
There were also found in the burial-places of children little rude clay toys representing pigs and horses.
More striking and unexpected than these discoveries, however, were those of several tombs said to have been found in the city with inscriptions proving that some Pagans at least believed in immortality, for the survivors speak of looking forward joyfully to reunion in another life with their lost ones.
The towns of Agde and Brescon, or Blascon, follow next in the chain of dead cities, both situated on volcanic islands at the mouth of the Hérault. If the speculations of etymologists have brought them to a correct conclusion, the name of Blascon proves the Phœnicians to have known something of geology. For Blascon is thought to be derived from the Pnician root balangon, to devour with fire; so that these ubiquitous traders must have recognised volcanic soil when they saw it.
Agde (Agatha Tyche—Good Fortune—from the happy position of its port, nautically considered) was a Greek colony from Marseilles carrying with it the cult of Hellas. A temple to Diana of Ephesus was erected on the coast, this goddess being the tutelar deity of the mother city. A few columns of the temple are said still to remain.
Agde was called the Black Town by Marco Polo; and by many a luckless traveller in the Middle Ages, a Cavern of Thieves.
Across the whole of this district between the cities, great roads used to run; the Domitian Way being founded on a primitive Ligurian or Celtic road, and extending from Carthagena through Gallia Narbonensis as far as the Rhone.
The Aurelian Way was another of these routes running further westward, but as to its exact course, no profane outsider may dare to pronounce. It is a subject that destroys all peace in antiquarian circles.
It has been remarked[4] that all names on a certain line of route, ending at Béziers in Languedoc, are Celtic, while all south of that route are Latin. Among the first we find Ugernum (Beaucaire), Nemausus (Nimes), Ambrossus (Ambrusian), Sostatio (Castelnau), Cessero (St. Thibery), Riterræ (Béziers).[5] The second or Latin names comprise Franque Vaux (Francavallis), Aigues Mortes (Acquæ Mortuæ), Saint Gilles (Fanum Sancti Ægidii), Vauvert (Vallis Viridis), Villeneuve (Villa Nova), Mirevaux (Mira Vallis), and so forth.
From their names, therefore, one may judge whether these towns were built before or after the Roman occupation, and thence whether the district was above water at that time, or at least whether it was possible for human habitation. It appears that this historical theory tallies precisely with the geology of the district, and that the whole country—even including the Alpilles, whose peaks formed islands at the beginning of our era—was covered with the sea. Mont Majour, near Arles—where is now a magnificent ruined castle characteristic of the country—the Montagnette de Tarascon, a curious little limestone height among whose recesses is perched a strange old monastery, and one or two other places, form the sole exceptions.
The old beach far inland can be traced easily by the line of sand-dunes often covered with Parasol Pines and white poplars. This line, therefore, marks the scene of some of the great changes and events of French history.
On the coast between sea and lagoon lies Maguelonne, a dead city indeed, but one of the most romantic spots in the South of France. Its fortress-church, gloomily shrouded by a grove of pines, stands on the lonely island, listening, one might fancy, to the incessant beat of the waters on the deserted shores—sole remnant of a great city.
Aigues Mortes with its wonderful walls untouched since they were built by Philip le Hardi; St. Gilles, in the Camargue (famous for its exquisite church), built perhaps on the site of the Greek city Heraclea, which had disappeared even in Philip's time; Arles, "the Gallic Rome," the residence of Roman Emperors and the capital of a later kingdom—these, too, belong to the astonishing list which might lengthen itself almost indefinitely.
Each town, moreover, is the scene of geological changes, of racial, social, and historical romance which would take a lifetime to learn and volumes to relate.
It is a strange, sad story—if truly the decadence of what we call prosperous cities and the desolation of brilliant sights be sad.
"Scarcely two thousand years," says Lenthéric, "have sufficed to convert these lagoons, formerly navigable, into sheets of pestilential water, to annihilate this immemorial vegetation, to transform into arid steppes this gracious archipelago of luxuriant wooded isles, and to outline this coast with a desolating dryness and an implacable monotony."
But at least it is peaceful: at least it is free from the fret and fume and tragedy of human life!
CHAPTER VI
THE BIRTH OF CHIVALRY
"Quan vez la landeta mover
De joi sas alas contra 'lrai,
Que s'oblida e s laissa cazer
Per la doussor qu'al cor l'in vai
Ailas! qual enueia m'enve,
Cui qu'ieu ne vai jauzion!
Meraveillas m'ai quar desse
Lo cor de dezirier no m fon."
"When I behold the skylark winging its merry journey towards the sun and then forgetful of itself from sudden inebriety of pleasure, drop down precipitant; Oh! how I long then for a fate like hers! How much I enjoy then the joy to which I'm witness! I am astonished that my heart is not at once dissolved in longing."
From M. Fauriel's "History of Provençal Poetry"
(Poem of the Skylark).
CHAPTER VI
THE BIRTH OF CHIVALRY
It is impossible to wander a day in Provence without being drawn to wonder if not to speculate upon the origin of that extraordinary outbreak of new sentiment that we call chivalry. It seems like a miraculous birth. It is impossible even to imagine what would have been the destinies of mankind had the beautiful inspiration failed to descend out of the blue just at the most brutal epoch of European history.
The life of the early Middle Ages was barbaric beyond all our powers of conception. Might was right in those days in a sense perhaps more absolute than under conditions of primitive savagery.
In fact, there existed a sort of official savagery of Church and State. Tolerance was undreamt of; there was no refuge for the oppressed, no rights for the weak, no honour, no fair play. Such rights and qualities belong to the ideals of chivalry. They had no nook or corner in the preceding era, no niche in the Christian Church; and the heart in which such outlandish feelings were untimely born must either have hardened or broken—as surely many a heart did break for sheer loneliness, divided by centuries from its brother spirits.
An extravagant picture? Only in the sense in which all rough sketches are extravagant.
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