CHAPTER V
The Church of Saint-Maximin
So persuasive was M. Rostan that when I had read his account of all this, sitting in front of the fire at my inn, within a stone's throw of the great church that had been the scene of so many strange and moving happenings, it is small wonder that I was inclined to believe at least a good half of it. It was my first introduction to the legend, which was to colour so much of my future wanderings, and many of the facts that I have given were unknown to me then. I thought, at least, that the main facts vouching for its truth went much farther back than they seem to, and if it was difficult to accept quite that galaxy of New Testament names, or the story of the miraculous voyage, still I thought there might be some truth in the tradition as attaching to some of them.
What emerges as indisputable fact, and what moved me at the time, is that through some centuries countless people did believe in every word of it, and thronged this little town where I was resting from all parts of the then known world. And there in the church which I was to see on the morrow was—no doubt about this either—the very thing that had brought them here—princes and prelates, hard soldiers and lawyers, men and women of every degree, making journeys, some of them, of immense difficulty just for the sake of beholding what I or any other traveller coming into a dull little town could see for a few sous before passing on our way. Or would not even take the trouble to see. A man with whom I had talked at dinner came to Saint-Maximin several times in the year and had never seen it. He was 'bon Catholique,' too, and said that there was no doubt at all that it was the head of St. Mary Magdalene they had in the church there. Some day he would go and see it, but not to-morrow, for he was too busy.
You may put your finger on strange gaps in such a story; you may find the first foundations upon which it rests too weak to bear it; parts of it you may refuse altogether to believe. But make what deductions you wish, and what a lot remains.
Some poor tired body was laid to rest in the soil from which this great church has sprung at a time when there were still alive those who had walked and talked with Our Lord; and it was the body of one who was venerated. Out of the dusk of successive centuries come gleams of light that show innumerable people, who differed not so greatly from ourselves, believing that the remains they had knowledge of were those that their forbears had held in honour from the beginning. It becomes hardly more difficult to believe that they were than that they were not.
Say that there has been error, say that there has been fraud if you like, and what have you denied? Nothing in the way of strong and moving power over those who have believed. There is the church, to which men whose names stand out in history made successive gifts through two centuries and a half, until it stood the splendid monument that it is today. There is the dust that countless pilgrims' feet have trodden for two centuries past. There is the echo of prayers and hymns, sighs from burdened hearts and praise from lightened ones that have gone up through ages from this place. The Revolution, which was to sweep away all error and superstition, might despise these sanctities, and scatter the venerated human dust, but it could not destroy the least particle of the faith that had been. It did not move the iconoclasts, but it had moved the world, and its effects remain in spite of them.
The wind had blown itself out the next morning and the air was cold, but sunny and still, as I paid my early visit to the church.
Its beauty is compelling, and when I had walked round it I sat down and tried to find out for myself in what it consists.
The first impression is one of austere simplicity. There are a nave and two aisles, with chapels, no transepts, and except for the Renaissance work about the choir and the altar, and the fine pulpit, scarcely any decoration. Rows of clustered pillars carry arches between the nave and the aisles; and between the arches spring from the floor itself successive groups of three very slender pillars, like rods of stone attached to the wall, which run up uninterrupted far above the arcading, until from a simple moulding spring the delicate ribs of the vaulting, all as light as if it were a roof of leaves held up by slim tree-trunks. The sense of lightness is wonderful, gained as it is without the slightest disguise of the solid masonry, by sculpture or other suggestion; and the wonder increases when one remembers that this is not the work of one architectural genius, but the flower of many successive periods of building. It is clean and strong and beautiful, a church with a true religious significance.
The choir contains some very fine wood-carving and metal-work of the seventeenth century, and above the gilt and jasper of the high altar is a rich device of almost life-size angels and cherubs, surrounding and enclosing a little oval window on which the Holy Dove is emblazoned. The morning sun, shining through this window, made a striking effect, though it is perhaps at variance with the pure dignity of the church itself. The celestial figures are wrought with a gay and delightful luxuriance of imagination. They overflow from the main composition with its sweep and spread of angels' wings; delicious cherubic forms perch on the marble of the reredos, on the carved frames of the medallions which it encloses, on the rich screens of the choir itself; and each of them has its own attitude of devotion, or interest, or expectation, or even curiosity.[5]
The inspiration of the Gothic had begun to die away when the fabric of the church had come near to completion. We may perhaps be thankful that it was never quite finished, for it has such perfection of life as it stands: life that sprang from an impulse lasting through centuries. No such impulse exists now. It is safe to say that the most understanding and sympathetic architecture would seem like a dead thing if it were sought to complete what was left undone.
The church lovers of the Renaissance made no such mistake. Their work was alive, too, and they spent their inspiration not on the beautiful fabric of the church but on its rich furnishing. What they wrought is as far away from us as the work of the Gothic builders was from them, and it is almost as unapproachable.
The iconoclasts of the Revolution wreaked their devastating zeal upon this Gloria, and upon any symbol or figure in the rich carvings of the choir that spoke of power or privilege. The church itself they spared, though you may see a device of fleur de lys on a boss of the roof vaulting spitefully disfigured by bullets.
What was it that they hated so? The arrogance of a church that had allied itself too much with the rich and powerful and worked on superstitions of mankind to gain riches and power and glory to itself, when there was so much wretchedness all around that it made small attempts to cope with? They would have said so, and to imagine them possessed only by the spirit of wickedness would be to make the same mistake about them as they made about the Church. In that dark hour the Church reaped the reward of its virtues at the same time as it paid for its sins. To the extent that it had been faithful those who had drawn comfort and consolation from it came to its aid; and if the fury of its attackers had been ten times as great they could not have stamped out the life that persisted through all the years of destruction; and flowered again profusely when the poor substitutes that had been planted in its place had wilted away. Religion could have done everything to heal the wrongs that had been suffered by the people who were now rising up to take the redress of wrongs into their own hands; and religion had done very little. It had been chiefly on the side of the oppressors, not of the oppressed. At its best it had given consolation in trouble that it had not sought to remove, at its worst it had committed crimes unspeakable. No wonder that a blind, insensate fury against the outward tokens of such a system seized those who thought that they had a mission to remove all oppression from the world. The buildings that enshrined it they could put to other uses, and the churches themselves were spared. But sacred relics they scattered to the dust with bitter contempt, and the treasures of art which spoke of an impotent faith that they despised, they destroyed or mutilated.
One of the minor glories of Saint-Maximin is the Altar of the Crucifixion, or the Corpus Domini, at the end of the north aisle. The high reredos, with gilded columns and pilasters, frames two large paintings and a series of sixteen smaller ones on wood, which are of the utmost interest. It has only comparatively lately become known that these are the work of a Venetian painter of the early sixteenth century, Antonio Ronzen, who stayed at Saint-Maximin two years and a half to execute them, together with the reredos itself.
ALTAR OF THE CRUCIFIXION, SAINT-MAXIMIN
THE FIELD OF THE GREAT BATTLE, WITH MOUNT OLYMPUS IN THE BACKGROUND
Page 94
Though Ronzen came into Provence from Venice, it seems unlikely that he was an Italian. His name is Dutch, and so is his style of painting; and a striking resemblance has been pointed out between one of these paintings and an engraving of the same subject executed by Lucas van Leyden ten years before. Wherever he came from, Ronzen was a great artist, and left behind him at Saint-Maximin a great treasure.
The sixteen panels are of different scenes in the Passion. The light was not good when I was in the church, and some of them are too high to be seen easily; but most of them are wonderfully fresh and vivid and suggestive, crowded with figures, and creating that sense of intimacy which has always been the mark of the Dutch school. Each of the scenes is set in a characteristic landscape. You can pick out the Ducal Palace at Venice, the Palace of the Popes at Avignon, the Coliseum; and the figures include all the types of the period, from the aristocrat to the peasant. Many of them, no doubt, are portraits of people very well known in their time, who came in and out of the church, or wherever the artist did his work, to see how he was getting on, and had a great deal to say about the painting and about the magnificent present that the Seigneur de Semblançay was making to the church, and what a fortunate thing it was that so clever an artist had been available to undertake the commission. Perhaps they used a little flattery, so that he should offer to "put them in."
He was an important person, this Jacques de Beaune, Seigneur de Semblançay. He was superintendent of the finances of Francis I, whose finances wanted a good deal of looking after, and lived at this time chiefly in Paris. But previously he had been Treasurer-General of Provence, and it might have been well for him if he had stayed in his own country. For he fell into disgrace, and was put to death seven years after Ronzen had finished the pictures he had ordered from him. Probably he found time, during the period from the end of 1517 to July, 1520, when Ronzen was at Saint-Maximin, to pay him a few visits and see how he was progressing. According to the custom of the time his portrait would almost certainly have been included among the figures that still appear so lifelike after five hundred years, and remains there, if we could only tell which of them all it is. Did he have any premonition or dread of the fate that was hanging over him, and did the people who were taking such a lively interest in the work he was inaugurating think of him as having attained to the pinnacle of success, and much to be envied in comparison with themselves, living humdrum lives in their beautiful Provence?
Saint-Maximin has a fine Sacristy, furnished with presses and panelling of beautifully carved walnut, of the seventeenth century. Before the Revolution it contained many rich treasures, gold cups and chalices, silver reliquaries, ornaments jewelled and enamelled. Kings and Sovereign Pontiffs had showered gifts upon it; but in 1793 everything was rifled.
"Barras and Fréron came to carry out the spoliation. Barras presented himself to the Popular Assembly to announce his mission, and a simple peasant, Jean Saurin, who died in 1842, Member of the Club, alone rose before the representative of the Convention to protest against the act of vandalism. He spoke honourably and with energy, but without success: the church was despoiled. Some rare and precious fragments, however, were saved from the wreck by the care and devotion of the sub-sacristan, Joseph Bastide, whose name deserves to be held in grateful memory by archæologists; for besides the sacred bones that the Church of Saint-Maximin can still offer, thanks to him, to public veneration, he was able to withdraw from the revolutionary spoliation a few rich ornaments, some ancient reliquaries, and a textile specimen of great value, the cope of St. Louis d'Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse. This cope, of the end of the thirteenth century, left by the holy bishop to the convent founded by his father, is one of the most beautiful and curious ornaments of the period."
Thus M. Rostan, who proceeds to describe it. But alas! it is no longer there. The sacristan, worthy descendant of the pious Joseph Bastide, told me the sad story after he had made me admire the beautiful woodwork and shown me how the long drawers in the presses that held the vestments drew in and out, as if they had been made yesterday instead of two hundred and fifty years ago.
He had taken such care of the treasures under his charge, locking up everything whenever he left the church, and seeing that all was fast when he went home for the night. And often he would look out of his window, in the little ancient house in which he lived hard by, to satisfy himself that no marauders were about.
But ten years ago—how well he remembered it—the marauders had come. He pointed to the iron-barred window through which they had made their entry. They had taken I forget what from the sacristy, but not the precious cope. I think he rather wished they had. Then they had broken into the church and into the crypt, and from there they had stolen the Holy Ampulla.
"This name is given," wrote M. Rostan, some years before the theft, "to a tube of crystal bearing the characters of the fourteenth century, and containing little fragments of glass, the remains of a phial still more ancient, which enclosed, according to tradition, some of the precious blood of the Saviour, collected by St. Mary Magdalene on Mount Calvary, brought by her to our country and discovered with the remains of this illustrious penitent."
The thieves had broken into the iron-protected case in which this relic was kept, together with the skull of the saint in its rich and heavy reliquary, and a bone from the arm. They had stolen the bone, too, but had left the chief treasure intact, possibly because it was too heavy and bulky to bear away with safety.
What was the meaning of this strange crime? As far as I understand what happened, the breaking in was difficult, and nothing of great intrinsic value was taken, though many things might have been. Much money, certainly, would be paid for such relics as were stolen, if they could have been bought openly; but if the fact that they had been stolen would have to be disclosed, as it would in order to attach even a damaged authenticity to them, of what value were they to anybody?
Protestant zeal, which sometimes indulges itself in a similar way in England, may be ruled out. In France it does not act with those impulsions, and in any case destruction or contemptuous mutilation would be its object rather than theft, and I think the people who had done the damage would be rather inclined to advertise it, and themselves. The sacred skull was not damaged.
Is it not forced upon one to believe that their value to the thief, or to those who may have encouraged the theft, was precisely that which they had always had; which was not represented by money at all?
"If our tradition is well-founded," wrote M. Rostan, "the Sainte Ampoule is evidently the most precious relic of the Church of Saint-Maximin. It has enjoyed wide celebrity throughout centuries, and frequent miracles have been attributed to it. On Good Friday, after the reading of the Passion, the traces of the divine blood were seen to liquefy, to rise and fall, bubbling, and to fill the whole phial. It was called the 'holy miracle.' A great crowd of pilgrims came each year to witness it."
Where is the relic hidden now? Does the thief who risked so much to possess it cherish it in secret, with his sin on his conscience, but hoping from its possession one knows not what in the way of preservation or blessing? Or is it hidden fearfully in some church—a priceless treasure that may never be displayed, but may be expected, by its secret presence, to sanctify its resting-place above other places? Do those who hold it still watch with strained attention on Good Fridays for the "holy miracle" to be performed? Do they perhaps persuade themselves that they see it, as many others must have done before them? For even M. Rostan, good and believing Catholic that he is, does not assert that the liquefaction has been plain to see within living memory.
I asked the sacristan whether the theft had been held to be the work of religious enthusiasts, but either he misunderstood me or his grievance overshadowed all such questions.
They had taken the wonderful cope out of his care. It was a unique specimen of thirteenth century needlework, and is now in safe keeping in Paris. After so many years they might have trusted him to look after it, he said, ignoring the fact that his care had proved unequal to the preservation of relics still more valuable, at least in the eyes of the Church. The Ministry of Fine Arts, or whatever authority had deprived Saint-Maximin of the cope, had been quite content that it should keep the sacred skull, showing some cynicism, it may be thought, as well as indulgence.
With much unlocking of iron grilles and doors, we descended into the crypt, the storied place that has seen so much during centuries past, where kings and popes have bent the knee, and before which so many princes and nobles have put off their arms.
It is almost square—a vaulted chamber about fourteen feet wide and a little longer, with an apse containing the altar, behind which is the reliquary enclosing the skull. The staircase leading down to it, and the side walls of the crypt itself, have been decorated with marble, comparatively recently, but the form of the chamber remains much as it always has been.
The sacred tombs, heavily carved with Biblical subjects, in the manner of the fourth century, are ranged on either side. They are said to be those of St. Maximin, St. Marcelle, St. Susan, St. Sidonius, and St. Mary Magdalene herself. They have been a good deal mutilated "by the piety of pilgrims," and in some degree made up, for the covers do not always belong to the sarcophagi on which they are fixed, or indeed to any other here.
The head of the Magdalen is contained in an elaborate gilt reliquary of the year 1860, of small artistic value. Under a heavy canopy four angels hold up a hollow metal bust with flowing hair, into which the head has been fitted.
What can one say of it? The sacristan pointed out to me the noli me tangere on the forehead, and I tried hard but could not distinguish it, though he said that it was quite plain to him. He was a believer, and I, frankly, was not, although the great antiquity of the relic and its stirring history aroused at least an endeavour to put myself in the mood of one who believed. But he, the believer, made it all appear so commonplace, holding up his stump of a candle here and there to exhibit a great curiosity, but showing no sign either in manner or speech of being moved to veneration or awe, or to any feeling outside those attaching to his customary occupation, that it is little wonder that I was scarcely able to produce any emotion at all.
One asks oneself many questions. Are not all the signs and wonders wrought by such relics as these a matter of self-deception, induced by crowds and movement and the atmosphere of enthusiasm? Or, in the rare instances in which they have been experienced by one alone, arising out of some state of ecstasy, hardly to be accepted as convincing testimony? If not, then how vaguely and arbitrarily these occult powers work! Faced by a known, even if half understood, power of nature, one knows the power to be there, and it will be felt beyond question if contact is made with it. Here, with a supposed spiritual power, there is only deadness of spirit, even with those who have the faith.
With one's facile modern venerations one is inclined to shudder at the iconoclasm of the Revolutionists, who laid rude hands on such objects as this. But may they not have been right after all? Long periods of deadness of spirit are a heavy price to pay for an occasional and questionable exhibition of arbitrary activity. And there are spiritual powers that do react to an exercise of faith, neither occasionally nor questionably, nor arbitrarily, which belief in tangible sanctities tends to obscure.
We locked and barred the grilles and doors and came up into the sunlight, leaving the much venerated relic to keep its watch in the dark crypt. With whatever lack of emotion it may be faced now, even by a believer, there has been no lack of it in the long past. And whatever view you may take of it, it is the seed from which sprang this strong and beautiful church.
CHAPTER VI
Caius Marius and the Great Battle
It was still early when I had finished with these sights and took the long straight road to Trets on my way to Aix. The sky was very clear and cold, and the country was flat and open. For a long time, whenever I looked back, I could see the great church standing up across the plain, and it was a long time before I ceased thinking about it.
But gradually another interest began to take its place, for I was passing through country where scenes had been enacted that changed the current of history long before the legend of which my mind had been full had had its beginning. Indeed, centuries were to elapse before the legend was to emerge out of the twilight of rumour and tradition and to rest upon documentary evidence, and yet the one story seems to go back to the dim ages of history while the other far earlier one is as plain in its main facts as if it were of yesterday. For it is of the Roman occupation of this country, and our feet are on the solid rock of history.
After two thousand years, the name of the great deliverer, Caius Marius, is still alive in Provence. Twice alive, indeed, if the very legend of the Marys which permeates the country can be traced back to the tradition of the Marii, of which there seems little doubt. But to that we shall come when we visit Les Baux and the monuments there.
In the year 102 b.c. Caius Marius gained a great victory over the Ambrons and Teutons at a spot between Saint-Maximin and Trets which I was to pass that morning. It was one of the decisive battles of the world, and to judge by the number of the slain one of the fiercest. You may read all about it in Plutarch, and here on the very spot you may follow the details of the parallel march of the Romans and the barbarians until they came to the place of the great slaughter, with recognition at every step, finding indeed here and there actual traces of the battle itself. Certain doubtful points have been cleared up and the story told by the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who went over the whole ground, Plutarch in hand, and published his results in a chapter of his interesting book, "In Troubadour Land."
In the year 113 b.c. the northern frontiers of Italy were threatened by a vast horde of barbarians, of whom the chief were the Cimbri and the Teutons. They did not, however, cross the Alps, but swept westwards into Gaul, carrying with them other tribes, among whom were the Ambrons.
They reached the Rhône three years afterwards and defeated the governor of the Roman province. Three successive consuls were sent against them from Rome, and were also defeated. Their chiefs exalted by success consulted as to whether they should march into Italy and exterminate or enslave the Romans, but although they devastated the province they could not yet make up their minds to march upon Rome.
The Cimbri divided from the rest and poured into Spain, which they ravaged. A few years later they returned, and it was now decided to invade Italy. The Cimbri were to enter it by way of the Brenner Pass, the Teutons and Ambrons by the Maritime Alps.
The menace of the barbarians had been hanging over Rome for ten years, and the utmost consternation now prevailed. Marius was despatched into Provence, as the only man who could cope with the danger there. The barbarian horde had not yet reached the Rhône on their eastward march, but were moving slowly in that direction, and Marius had a winter in which to organize the demoralized Roman troops and to choose his positions.
In the spring, when the grass had grown enough to provide food for their horses and oxen, the barbarians put themselves in motion. Marius left the Cimbri to take their agreed-upon route to the north-east, and waited for the Teutons and Ambrons. He allowed them to cross the Rhône, and they drew up before his fortified camp at St. Gabriel on the westernmost spur of the Alpilles, and shouted defiance and insult to his troops. But he restrained the Romans from attacking them. Their ambition, he told them, should not now be for triumphs and trophies but to dispel the dreadful storm that hung over them and to save Italy itself from destruction.
The barbarians made a half-hearted attack upon the Roman camp, which was easily repulsed, and then moved on. It was said that though they moved forward without pause it took them six days to pass the camp, so vast were their numbers. They were indeed nations and not only armies on the march. The cumbrous house-wagons with which they moved were their homes, for their wives and families were with them, and none had been left behind.
The hot-blooded Romans were by now inured to their insults, one of which was to shout the question whether they had any commands for their wives in Italy, for they would shortly be with them. One can picture them sulkily watching from the high ground, where they were encamped, the interminable rabble moving on day after day, and wondering whether they would ever end. But directly the barbarians had passed Marius struck camp and followed them, not by the straight Roman road which they had taken along the valley, but by the heights to the south, and observed all their movements, himself out of sight.
At Aix the Ambrons detached themselves from their allies to make a descent upon Marseilles. Marius had fixed upon a hill for his camp at Les Milles, four miles to the south of Aix. It was unexceptionable in point of strength, but afforded little water. By this circumstance, says Plutarch, they tell us he wanted to excite his soldiers to action, and when many of them complained of thirst he pointed to the river Arc, which ran close by the enemy's camp, and told them that thence they must buy water with their blood.
It was this lack of water that precipitated the contest. The soldiers obeyed the order first of all to fortify their camp, but the servants of the army could not be restrained from going down to the river for water. Some of the enemy were bathing in the hot springs that well up in this place, others were eating. These were cut off by the camp-followers, others came to their assistance, and the Roman soldiers rushed down from the hill to rescue their servants. The engagement became general, and the Ambrons were beaten with great loss, the river being choked with their dead.
This was a good beginning, but the Romans spent the night in fear of attack, for their camp was not yet fortified. "There remained yet many myriads of the barbarians unconquered; and such of the Ambrons as escaped mixing with them, a cry was heard all night not like the sighs and groans of men, but like the howling and bellowing of wild beasts. As this came from such an innumerable host the neighbouring mountains and the hollow banks of the river returned the sound, and the horrid din filled all the plains. The Romans felt a sense of terror, and Marius himself was filled with apprehension at the idea of a tumultuous night engagement."
Fortunately, however, the barbarians did not attack, but after a day and a night moved on and joined the Teutons, who were passing along the road to the north of the river Arc. At this point Plutarch's narrative becomes confused, for he does not effectually distinguish the fields of the two battles, which were fought two days apart. It is here that Mr. Baring-Gould's careful investigations are valuable in elucidating the narrative.
The barbarians halted at the Roman station Tegulata, now the hamlet of La Petite Pugère, a day's march from Aix. Marius crossed the river and kept to the south of it till he reached Trets. At his rear he had a fortified camp on Mount Olympus, to the north of the barbarians was another fortified Roman camp, Panis Annonæ, still called Pain de Munition. To this he had sent the day before an officer with three thousand men, who had made their way to it protected by the range of Mont Victoire. His plan must have been made long before, from a careful consideration of the route the enemy was likely to take, and the commanding positions fortified and provisioned. The barbarians were in a trap, but did not yet know it.
In the morning the enemy awoke to see the bulk of the Roman army drawn up on the slope of a hill to the south of their camp. They could not contain their impatience until the army advanced into the plain, and received their first setback by rushing up to attack it. Marius sent his officers among the troops with orders to stand still and await the onslaught. When the enemy was within reach they were to throw their javelins, and then, sword in hand, press them down with their shields. He knew that the slope was so slippery that the blows of the enemy would be delivered with no great force and that they could not keep any close order.
When this attack had been repulsed the Romans crossed the river and fell upon the main body of the enemy, who was beginning to form again. But at the same time the ambushed troops descended from Panis Annonæ in the rear, and panic seized the barbarians. The slaughter was terrific. Plutarch gives the number of killed as a hundred thousand of the enemy alone. Some accounts double the number, and give that of the prisoners as another eighty thousand. It is said also that three hundred thousand of the camp-followers and women were either killed or sold into slavery. It was the extermination not of an army but of a nation.
So frightful was the carnage that the field of battle was known as Campi Putridi, and the neighbouring village is still called Pourrières. It was said that the inhabitants of Marseilles walled in their vineyards with the bones they found in the field, and that the rain which fell the winter following soaked in the moisture of the putrefied bodies and the ground was so enriched by it that it bore a prodigious crop.
"After the battle, Marius selected from among the arms and other spoils such as were elegant and entire, and likely to make the greatest show in his triumph. The rest he piled together, and offered as a splendid sacrifice to the gods. The army stood round the pile, crowned with laurel; and himself, arrayed in his purple robe, and girt after the manner of the Romans, took a lighted torch. He had just lifted it up with both hands towards heaven, and was about to set fire to the pile, when some friends were seen galloping towards him. Great silence and expectation followed. When they were come near, they leaped from their horses and saluted Marius as consul for the fifth time, delivering him letters to the same purpose. This added great joy to the solemnity, which the soldiers expressed by acclamations and by clanking their arms; and while the officers were presenting Marius with new crowns of laurel, he set fire to the pile and finished the sacrifice."[6]
How different from the sort of corroboration brought to bear upon the later Christian history of Provence is the fact that the spot on which this great holocaust took place two thousand years ago has lately been identified by the ashes, melted lead and other metals, and fragments of burnt pottery discovered there!
Here also was erected a monument to Marius, which existed in its entirety up to the time of the Revolution, and was then partially destroyed, one would like to know why. And here was found some five and twenty years ago a beautiful Greek marble statue of Venus Victrix, but without head and arms, which is now in the museum at Avignon. Mr. Baring-Gould considers that this proves that the monument was raised by Julius Cæsar, for there would be an indirect compliment to his own family in it. "Venus was the ancestress of the Julian race, and Cæsar perhaps insinuated, if he erected the statue, that the success of Marius was due to the patronage of the divine ancestress and protectress of the Julian race, and of Julius Cæsar's aunt, the wife of Marius, quite as much as to the genius in war of Marius himself."
On the top of Mount Victoire, which overlooks the scene of the terrific battle, a temple was erected and dedicated to Venus Victrix. This became a Christian church, and Venus Victrix became St. Victoire. Right up to the time of the Revolution the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages ascended the mountain on March 23rd, bearing boughs of box and shouting "Victoire! Victoire!" and Mass was celebrated. Then a bonfire was lit, and the peasants with garlands on their heads danced the farandole round it. The beautiful ancient music to which the peasants made their progress is still preserved; so hard does tradition die in this land of long memories.
I should have liked to make a stay at Trets, and to explore this country. There is so much to see in connection with the battle—the ruins of the church on Mont Victoire, the ruins of the trophy on the field itself, the traces of the fortifications on the Pain de Munition, and perhaps the very hill slope of slippery marl upon which the Romans first bore back the attacking enemy. But I wanted to get on to Aix, the first large Provençal city in my itinerary, and thence to Arles and Nîmes and the rest of the beautiful places that are like a cluster of jewels in the country's diadem. So I contented myself with identifying the mountain heights which played their part in that grim struggle twenty centuries ago.
There was the great range running parallel to the road on the south, with Mount Aurelian rising up and overlooking Saint-Maximin, and Mount Olympus due south from the field of battle. There was the bold rampart of Mont Victoire away to the north, and the hills among which is the Pain de Munition, on the other side of the plain on which the battle was fought. I could picture it alive with the tents and wagons of the vast horde of barbarians, so soon to be exterminated, and then strewn with their dead or mangled bodies. I knew that I was looking upon the same everlasting hills as those thousands upon thousands of dying eyes looked upon centuries ago; and there was more of a thrill in that than in the sight of the blackened skull in the church of Saint-Maximin.
For this mighty conflict happened here, without a doubt, and the plain and the hills upon which our eyes look today were a part of the happening. There is something for the imagination to rest and work upon.
CHAPTER VII
Aix
The rain began to fall as I sat outside the inn at Porcieux, and by the time I reached Trets I was wet through. So I went to bed in an inn until my clothes should be dry, and greatly daring ordered a cup of tea. When it came it was of a pale straw colour, and its flavour would not have satisfied the connoisseurs of Mincing Lane. But it was tea, with the astringent quality possessed by that beverage alone among all infusions of herbs or berries. Wine is one of the gifts of God that in this drab world one may be thankful for, but as a beverage it palls. Of all the many drinks I enjoyed in my travels in Provence I think that cup of indifferent tea stands out as the most refreshing.
My clothes were brought up to me in an hour or two's time almost as wet as ever, and I put them on and went down into the kitchen to dry them myself. There was an enormous open hearth, but very little fire on it; but they threw on bundles of sticks, and very soon there was a hot fire. The master of the inn, his wife and daughters, the cook in his white cap and apron, who had just come in to begin his evening's work, and one or two maids, all took the most serious and sympathetic interest in the process. I hung my coat on the back of a chair, which I placed on the hearth itself, and stood by the fire, turning to it first one side and then the other, enveloped in a cloud of steam from my sopping flannel trousers. I should have thought that most people under the necessity of drying their clothes would have done so something after this fashion, but to them it seemed to show an ingenious originality, and people were summoned from tables in the café to stand at the kitchen door and see the remarkable sight. When I was fairly dry we all drank wine together, after which we shook hands and I went out to see the town, leaving behind me, by all tokens, an agreeable memory.
Trets is very old, and has the appearance of being uncared for. One is so accustomed, in France, to seeing remains of historic interest cleaned and furbished up and saved from further decay, that these ruinous gateways and towers and fortifications, and narrow untidy streets with decayed-looking houses lining them, strike a dismal note. The church is partly of the eleventh century, very massive and very dark inside, and has an unfinished tower that adds to the general appearance of decay. Perhaps the rain, which had begun to fall again, had something to do with the impression that the place made upon me; I was glad enough to get away from it and take the train to Aix.
I dined for a franc at Gardanne, and reached Aix after dark in renewed torrents of rain. But I had something to look forward to—an hotel that I knew, which would provide a hot bath, and a bag of clothes waiting for me. I had been on the road for nine days, and was ready for a little ordinary comfort.
It was dull and cold the next morning, and Aix is a city that has provided itself against heat. Its fine broad central boulevard, the Cours Mirabeau, is shaded by a double avenue of planes, which must be among the largest to be found even in this land of planes. The Place de la Rotonde, at one end of it, has an elaborate system of fountains, and there are three other fountains in the middle of the boulevard itself, one of which is fed by a hot spring. The shade of the giant trees and the plash of the water must be pleasant enough in hot weather, but the bare branches conveyed none of the charm that their foliage would give later on, and Aix seemed to me a little cheerless, though I hasten to say that that is not its true character.
Aix rejoices in the name of "The French Athens." It has always been learned, classical, and aristocratic. The streets are lined with the fine hotels of the Provençal noblesse, some of which are still occupied by families whose roots strike far back into history. Many of them are said to contain rare treasures of art, hidden from the public gaze in proud seclusion, and for the most part unknown to the world.
These things are not for the wayfarer to see, but I think that if I had read M. Paul Mariéton's charming book, "La Terre Provençal," before my walk in Provence instead of after, I should have made an attempt to see some of them.
"In Aix," he writes, "you will find masterpieces in rooms scarcely furnished, mansions mouldering to decay, with staircases of honour bare and cold leading to garden courts uncultivated—unless a few vegetables for the pot are grown between staves in wine casks.
"An undoubted masterpiece, in a mansion neither cold nor bare, but full of laughter and gaiety, is the portrait of Rubens by Vandyke, which the master presented to his friend Peiresc at Antwerp. The existence of this page of genius, the most significant, it seems to me, of the great painter's work, is not suspected by the critics, and scarcely known except to a few amateurs."
In another vast Louis XIV hotel, M. Mariéton mentions a Teniers, two Van Eycks, a Vanloo, a Hobbema, and a Raphael; in another, a superb ivory Christ attributed to Cellini. And he speaks of the store of historic documents, still unpublished, to be found in these ancient houses.
A wandering Englishman might possibly receive a welcome in some of these houses because of his nationality. Aix used to be a favourite place of residence for English people of rank and wealth. In the cathedral is a memorial tablet which I find inscribed in a guide-book as that of the wife of "sir Dolben, baronnet d'Angleterre," and of his three children, who died, the first aged seven years, the second seven days, and the third seven hours; and there is another to "sir Webb, baronnet anglais."
M. Louis de Laincel wrote thirty years ago of his childhood's memories of a very rich Englishwoman, "my lady Russel."
"This lady had the generous habit of sending magnificent presents to all the children of her acquaintance on New Year's Day. Dieu! what joy for the children, when the lackey of mylady Russel rang at the door of the house, carrying on his arm an enormous basket full of presents! What bonbons, and what delightful toys! Bonne lady!"[7]
This was in the twenties and thirties of the nineteenth century, but it is quite likely that in this country of long memories the tradition of English generosity still remains.
But there is plenty to see in Aix without invading privacies. The city itself I found not very attractive, partly for the reasons I have already given. But it is lacking in the pleasant public gardens which make so many French towns places of grateful memory: there is only one, rather small and uninteresting, on the outskirts. Perhaps it was the society of Aix that attracted our forbears; otherwise one would have expected them to prefer Avignon, or Nîmes or Arles, of the inland cities of southern France.
The large church of St. Madeleine is of the early eighteenth century, with a rather clumsy imitation Renaissance façade of the year 1860. It faces the Place des Prêcheurs, which opens out into the larger Place du Palais, on the west side of which is the fine Palais de Justice, and behind it the heavy ancient prison. A busy market was going on in this open space, and people were crowding in and out of the church for the Thursday's Mass.
It was being sung at a side altar. From the stacks of chairs by the west door those who entered would take one, slipping the necessary sous into the hand of the old woman in charge of them, and put it down in the most convenient place available within view of the ceremony. The organist sat at a harmonium to the left of the altar, with his choir boys about him and the congregation almost jostling his elbows. There was a sort of domesticity about the scene. One felt that all the people who came into the church so busily and familiarly thought of it as a place in which to make themselves at home.
There was no such air about the fine cathedral church of St. Saviour. It gave the impression, more than any French church I have visited, that one gets in an English cathedral: of a noble monument of the past, kept in apple-pie order, but with its religious usages somewhat subordinated to its historic interest. At St. Madeleine, the little votive tablets and pictures and relics that pious souls have brought to their favourite altars for years past are stuck all over the walls of the chapels in great profusion, and with no particular regard to order. The cathedral is not without them, but they are confined severely to the neat oval tablet with a gilt frame and gold lettering on a blue or red ground, and they are disposed upon the walls or over the arches in austere devices. And there is none of the tawdriness about the altars that belongs to churches in which people make themselves at home. Indeed, the high altar, and the choir, might belong to a stately Anglican cathedral, with which the common people have about as much to do as with the furnishing of the Deanery.
This cathedral church of St. Saviour is full of happy surprises. Its component parts have been built in widely different periods, but it has "come together" in the most satisfactory way, and its variety is only equalled by its beauty. The first surprise, upon entrance, is the magnificent octagonal Baptistery. It is said to have been originally a Temple of Apollo, and the eight monolithic columns that support the modern cupola are of the Roman period. Two are of granite, and the rest of porphyry, but the bases and the delicately carved capitals are of white marble. The effect of the whole structure is exquisite; it can be seen from different parts of the cathedral through intervening arches, and adds enormously to the charm of the building.
The Baptistery is to the south of the aisle that was the original church. This aisle was consecrated in 1103. The present nave, with the choir slightly out of axis, and the north aisle, were begun at the end of the thirteenth century and not finished until the sixteenth. The central nave is enclosed by walls almost entirely solid, and the effect of the narrow openings cut through them, with glimpses into the side aisles, is singularly pleasing.
The long rows of carved stalls on either side of the choir are surmounted by some very fine tapestries. The design is attributed to Quentin Matsy's, and although the guide-books call them the "Cantorbéry" tapestry, they state that they came from our St. Paul's Cathedral and were bought in Paris in the year 1656 for twelve hundred crowns. But Dr. Montagu Rhodes James, Provost of King's College,[8] investigated the whole question some years ago, and read a paper before the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, from which it appears that there is no foundation for the connection with St. Paul's. Nor does he say anything about Quentin Matsy's, though the tapestries are undoubtedly Flemish, and of his date.
In the Inventory of Christchurch, Canterbury, taken in 1540, after the suppression of the monastery, is the entry "Item one faire new hanging of riche tapestrie con(taining) vj peces of the story of Christ and our Lady." Three of them were the gift of a prior, Thomas Goldston, whose device appears in the border, and three of Richard Dering, cellarer; and on the border is part of an inscription, of which the beginning is lost: celarius me fieri fecit anno domini millesimo quingentesimo undecimo; ... the cellarer had me made a.d. 1511.
So there is no doubt about it. These fine tapestries hung in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral for at least a hundred and thirty years, and then they were sold and taken to Aix, where part of them hang in the choir and part in the Archbishop's Palace. They have been a good deal cut about, and Dr. James thinks there must originally have been five scenes to a piece, which would give thirty instead of the twenty-six now to be seen.
Katharine of Aragon is said, but not by Dr. James, to be represented among the figures in the "Descent from the Cross," and there is a whole bevy of fair Englishwomen in the first panel of all, which represents "The Birth of the Virgin." They are portraits of ladies of the English court, and might be beautiful English girls of today, so lifelike and characteristic are they; some of them with the sweetest young faces of a type that is as well known now as it apparently was four hundred years ago.
I tried to get photographs of at least some of this delightful work in Aix, but without success. There are postcards of the whole series, but they are evidently from drawings and not photographs of the original. In that charming picture of the English girls the faces lose most of their character and half their beauty. Let nobody who may happen to receive one of these postcards imagine that it gives a satisfactory reproduction of the original.[9]
THE CANTERBURY TAPESTRY
THE FAMOUS "TARASQUE"
Page 108
Behind the high altar is the Chapel of St. Mitre. The life of this saint is pictured in many of its episodes in a curious painting of the sixteenth century which is to be seen there. His end was remarkable. He was beheaded but rose to his feet, picked up his head, and carried it more than a thousand paces to this very spot. You may see him approaching the cathedral, his head in his hands, and the bishop with his attendant clergy waiting for him at the door. And in the centre of the composition he is represented, still with his head in his hands, with many people on their knees around him, including the whole family of the pious Jacques de la Roque, who did not happen to have been present at the time, but who gave the picture.
St. Mitre's tomb is upheld by two columns of soft stone, from which is said to exude moisture that cures blindness. There is a little hole in the right hand pillar in which the sweating is supposed to show itself, and during the octave of the saint many people come to do him honour and to anoint their eyes from the pillar.
In the Chapelle de l'Université in the north aisle is a moving representation of St. Martha and the Dragon, the famous "Tarasque," from which she freed the stricken country. The bull's head of this curious monster wears an expression of mildness and mournful surprise, as if it is wondering what it has done to make itself so disliked. It seems to be saying: "I was made like this; I can't help it; I have only followed the dictates of my nature." The tradition of the Tarasque is all over Provence, and as most of the early Christian legends are based upon Roman happenings it is probable that the dragon stands for the scourge of invasion by the barbarians, and the various rescuing saints for Marius and his Romans.
The triptych, called "Le Buisson Ardent," famous since it was exhibited in the great exhibition of "Primtifs" in the Louvre, in 1904, hangs on a wall of the nave. It is kept closed, but a few centimes will unlock it, and also uncover the beautiful carving of the west doors.
This very fine picture is by Nicolas Froment, a fifteenth century painter from Avignon. It has been attributed to King René, but skilful as that versatile amateur was he could never have painted anything half so beautiful. The central picture, with its exquisite and wonderfully preserved gold border, represents the Virgin and the Holy Child seated upon a great mass of foliage, from which spring little flickering flames. Beneath them is an angel appearing to Moses, who is struck with astonishment and is taking off his shoe. A flock of sheep and goats is pasturing between them, and Moses's dog, resting at his feet, turns his head to the angel with a look of interest and watchfulness. Behind is a rich Provençal landscape, with the Rhône running through it. It is a delicious picture, both in design and colouring.
The side panels contain portraits of King René, and of his second wife, Jeanne de Laval, kneeling—a panel to each. Above the king stand Saints Madeleine, Antoine, and Maurice, above the queen Saints Nicolas, Catharine and John, all of them evidently contemporary portraits. The old king, whose many trials and happy disposition, as well as his love for Provence, have preserved his memory as that of few kings has been preserved, is shown to us here as realistically as if we could look in on him in the flesh. It is a serious moment with him, and his mouth is set tightly above the jutting double chin. But it is not the seriousness of austerity. When he rises from his knees his face will break out into smiles, and he will have much to say about the details of the ceremony at which he has just assisted. For he was well versed in such matters, and a patron of all the arts besides.
He was like a monarch out or a book, this good King René; and he has been put into at least one famous book, though not without a touch of caricature. In "Anne of Geierstein," Sir Walter Scott describes him thus:
"René was a prince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the fine arts, which he carried to extremity, and with a degree of good humour, which never permitted him to repine at fortune, but rendered its possessor happy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died of despair. This insouciant, light-tempered, gay and thoughtless disposition conducted René, free from all the passions which embitter life, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domestic losses made no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerful old monarch. Most of his children had died young; René took it not to heart. His daughter Margaret's marriage with the powerful Henry (VI) of England was considered a connection above the fortunes of the King of the Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of René deriving any splendour from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes of his daughter, and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supply her ransom.... Among all his distresses, René feasted and received guests, danced, sang, composed poetry, used the pencil or brush with no small skill, devised and conducted festivals and processions, studied to promote the mirth and good humour of his subjects."
LE BUISSON ARDENT
PORTE D'EYGUIÈRES
Page 128
Of his genuine skill with the brush there is a most pleasing example preserved in the Bibliothèque Méjane at Aix—a Book of Hours, of which the initial letters are beautifully illuminated by his hand. There is also a patent of nobility signed by him in a bold and picturesque manner. Whether the illuminations are authentic or not—and I have no reason to throw doubt upon them—René could sign his name, like a king and an artist.
At the end of the Cours Mirabeau is a large statue of this merry monarch, of no great artistic value, but showing him holding in his hand a bunch of Muscat grapes, which he first introduced into Europe. It is not his least claim to memory.
We have not quite done with the cathedral. The wonderful carving of the west doors is protected by wooden covers, which have kept them in a perfect state of preservation. They are of walnut wood, and were done in 1504, seven years before Richard Dering, the Canterbury cellarer, gave that commission for the tapestries which now hang near them. In the lower parts are figures of Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremiah, each under a rich canopy; and above them are the twelve Sibyls, each of a different nation and with appropriate symbol. The borders of fruit and flowers are exquisite. There is hardly a finer piece of wood-carving on a large scale to be seen anywhere than on these massive doors, and they and the triptych should on no account be missed by any one who finds himself in the cathedral.
The portal that enshrines these beautiful doors is of the same date, and is quite worthy of them. There is a charming figure of the Virgin and Child on a pedestal between the doors. The lusty, well-grown baby is held upon his mother's arm, and she looks at him with smiling pride, as mothers do all the world over.
The cloisters should also be visited, for the sake of the carvings on the double rows of pillars that hold up the arcading, in which the sculptors have let themselves loose in all sorts of luxuriant fancies. They are hardly less interesting than those in the famous cloisters of St. Trophime at Arles.
Aix is rich in pictures, besides those in the churches. I spent a pleasant rainy afternoon in the Museum, and found a great deal to interest me. Not to mention the very fine examples of the "Primitives," there are several pictures by Ingres, including the richly coloured "Jupiter and Thetis," and the very interesting portrait of Granet.
But it was my discovery of Granet himself that gives me my pleasantest recollection of the Aix Museum. There is a whole room devoted to his pencil and water-colour drawings, which contains also many of his best known paintings. His subjects are something of the same as those of Wilkie, who was his contemporary, but in his composition and beautiful effects of lighting he seems to me an incomparably greater artist. He was a native of Aix, and died there in 1849. I was told by an old gossip at Avignon that he was servant in the house of a rich amateur painter, and that he used to lock himself into his garret, whenever he had a moment to himself, to make his own experiments. One day his master looked through the keyhole and saw what he was doing. He might, said my gossip, have been struck with jealousy. But he was of the noblesse. He was struck instead with admiration of the work that he beheld—probably after having knocked at the door—, greeted the valet as his master, and assisted him to make his career.
The late afternoon was fine. I walked all about the town, visited the remaining churches, and paid due attention to other objects of interest.
Among the curiosities of Aix is the monument of Joseph Sec, which the owner of that harmonious name caused to be erected on the edge of his garden in 1792. It faces the street, and bears the inscription:
Venez, habitants de la terre,
Nations, écoutez la loi!
It includes the figures of Themis and Moses, and among other symbols two bas-reliefs of banknotes for a hundred and two thousand francs. The whole erection is rather absurd, although it was the work of the sculptor Chastel. But probably Joseph Sec was one of those patrons of the arts who know what they want and see that they get it. I have not the smallest doubt that Chastel, who was a sculptor of merit, heard from him the phrase: "I pay the piper, and it is only fair that I should call the tune," or its French equivalent.
Joseph Sec called another very curious tune to Chastel, of which M. Mariéton tells.
He was taken into the deserted garden behind the monument—"the Trianon of the bourgeois of Aix," he calls it—and into a little Louis XVI kiosk littered with tools. In it was an old sofa, the seat of which was lifted for him to see the life-sized figure of a naked man in painted marble, with a bloodstained scar on his forehead—a dreadful, realistic representation of a workman who had been killed by a stone falling from Joseph Sec's monument.
How modern he was, this good bourgeois of Aix, who died over a hundred years ago! A taste for the arts, and money enough to indulge it! I own that I should have tried to get a glimpse of this artistic atrocity of his, if I had known of its existence.