In Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc

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[Frontispiece: Tower of St. Trophimus, Arles.]

IN TROUBADOUR-LAND.

A Ramble in

Provence and Languedoc.

by

S. Baring-Gould, M.A.,

AUTHOR OF "MEHALAU," "JOHN HERRING," "OLD COUNTRY LIFE," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY J. E. ROGERS.

"What is this life, if it be not mixed with some delight? And what delight is more pleasing than to see the fashions and manners of unknown places? You know I am no common gadder, nor have oft troubled you with travell."—Tom of Reading, 1600.

1891.

PREFACE.

With Murray, Bædeker, Guide Joanne, and half-a-dozen others—all describing, and describing with exactness, the antiquities and scenery—the writer of a little account of Provence and Languedoc is driven to give much of personal incident. When he attempts to describe what objects he has seen, he is pulled up by finding all the information he intended to give in Murray or in Bædeker or Joanne. If he was in exuberant spirits at the time, and enjoyed himself vastly, he is unable, or unwilling, to withhold from his readers some of the overflow of his good spirits. That is my apology to the reader. If he reads my little book when his liver is out of order, or in winter fogs and colds—he will call me an ass, and I must bear it. If he is in a cheerful mood himself, then we shall agree very well together.

S. BARING-GOULD.

LEW TRENCHARD, DEVON,

October 28, 1890.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

The Tiber in Flood—Typhoid fever in Rome—Florence—A Jew acquaintance—Drinking in Provence—Buying bric-à-brac with the Jew—the carro on Easter Eve—Its real Origin—My Jew friend's letters—Italian dolce far niente

CHAPTER II.

THE RIVIERA.

No ill without a counterbalancing advantage—An industry peculiar to Italy—Italian honesty—Buffalo Bill at Naples—The Prince and the straw-coloured gloves—The Riviera—A tapestry—Nice—Its flowers—Notre Dame—The château—My gardener—A pension of ugly women—Horses and their hats—Antibes—Meeting of Honoré IV. and Napoleon—The Grimaldis—Lérins, an Isle of Saints—A family jar—Healed

CHAPTER III.

FRÉJUS.

The freedman of Pliny—Forum Julii—The Port of Agay—The Port of Fréjus—Roman castle—Aqueduct—The lantern of Augustus—The cathedral—Cloisters—Boy and dolphin—Story told by Pliny—The Chains des Maures—Désaugiers—Dines with the porkbutchers of Paris—Siéyès—Sans phrase—Agricola—His discoveries

CHAPTER IV.

MARSEILLES.

The three islands Phoenice, Phila, Iturium—Marseilles first a Phoenician colony—The tariff of fees exacted by the priests of Baal—The arrival of the Ionians—The legend of Protis and Gyptis—Second colony of Ionians—The voyages of Pytheas and Euthymenes—Capture of Marseilles by Trebonius—Position of the Greek city—The Acropolis—Greek inscriptions—The lady who never "jawed" her husband—The tomb of the sailor-boy—Hôtel des Négociants—Ménu—Entry of the President of the Republic—Entry of Francis I.—The church of S. Vincent—The cathedral—Notre Dame de la Garde—The abbey of S. Victor—Catacombs—The fable of S. Lazarus

CHAPTER V.

THE CRAU.

The Basin of Berre—A neglected harbour—The diluvium—Formation of the Crau—The two Craus—Canal of Craponne—Climate of the Crau—The bise and mistral—Force of the wind—Cypresses—A vision of kobolds

CHAPTER VI.

LES ALYSCAMPS.

Difficulty of finding one's way about in Arles—The two inns—The mistral—The charm of Arles is in the past—A dead city—Situation of Arles on a nodule of limestone—The Elysian Fields—A burial-place for the submerged neighbourhood—The Alyscamp now in process of destruction—Expropriation of ancient tombs—Avenue of tombs—Old church of S. Honoré—S. Trophimus—S. Virgilius—Augustine, apostle of the English, consecrated by him—The flying Dutchman—Tomb of Ælia—Of Julia Tyranna—Her musical instruments—Monument of Calpurnia—Her probable story—Mathematical versus classic studies—Tombs of utriculares—Christian sarcophagi—Probably older than the date usually attributed to them—A French author on the wreckage of the Elysian Fields

CHAPTER VII.

PAGAN ARLES.

The Arles race a mixture of Greek and Gaulish—The colonisation by the Romans—The type of beauty in Arles—The amphitheatre—A bull-baiting—Provençal bull-baits different from Spanish bull-fights—The theatre—The ancient Greek stage—The destruction of the Arles theatre—Excavation of the orchestra—Discovery of the Venus of Arles—A sick girl—Palace of Constantine

CHAPTER VIII.

CHRISTIAN ARLES.

Sunday in France—Improved observance—The cathedral of Arles—West front—Interior-Tool-marks—A sermon on peace—The cloisters—Old Sacristan and his garden—Number of desecrated churches in Arles—Notre Dame de la Majeur—S. Cæsaire—The isles near Arles—Cordes—Montmajeur—A gipsy camp—The ruins—Tower—The chapel of S. Croix

CHAPTER IX.

LES BAUX.

The chain of the Alpines—The promontory of Les Baux—The railway from Arles to Salon—First sight of Les Baux—The churches of S. Victor, S. Claude, and S. Andrew—The lords of Les Baux claimed descent from one of the Magi—The fair maid with golden locks—The chapel of the White Penitents—The deïmo—History of the House of Les Baux—The barony passes to the Grimaldi—The ladies of Les Baux and the troubadours—Fouquet—William de Cabestaing—The morality of the loves of the troubadours—The Porcelets—Story of a siege—Les Baux a place of refuge for the citizens of Arles—Glanum Liviæ—Its Roman remains—In the train—Jäger garments

CHAPTER X.

THE CAMPAIGN OF MARIUS.

The Trémaïé—Representation of C. Marius, Martha, and Julia—The Gaïé—The Teutons and Ambrons and Cimbri threaten Italy—C. Marius sent against them—His camp at S. Gabriel—The canal he cut—The barbarians cross the Rhone—First brush with them—They defile before him at Orgon—The rout of the Ambrons at Les Milles—He follows the Teutons—The plain of Pourrières—Position of Marius—The battle—Slaughter of the Teutons—Position of their camp—Monument of Marius—Venus Victrix—Annual commemoration

CHAPTER XI.

TRETS AND GARDANNE.

The fortifications of Trets—The streets—The church—Roman sarcophagus—Château of Trets—Visit to a self-educated archæologist—His collection made on the battle-field—Dispute over a pot of burnt bones—One magpie—Gardanne—The church—A vielle—Trouble with it—Story of an executioner's sword

CHAPTER XII.

AIX.

Dooll, but the mutton good—Les Bains de Sextius—Ironwork caps to towers—S. Jean de Malthe—Museum—Cathedral—Tapestries and tombs—The cloisters—View from S. Eutrope—King René of Anjou—His misfortunes—His cheeriness—His statue at Aix—Introduces the Muscat grape

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CAMARGUE.

Formation of the delta of the Rhone—The diluvial wash—The alluvium spread over this—The three stages the river pursues—The zone of erosion—The zone of compensation—The zone of deposit—River mouths—Estuaries and deltas—The formation of bars—Of lagoons—The lagoons of the Gulf of Lyons—The ancient position of Arles between the river and the lagoons—Neglect of the lagoons in the Middle Ages—They become morasses—Attempt at remedy—Embankments and drains—A mistake made—The Camargue now a desert—Les Saintes Maries—No evidence to support the legend—Based on a misapprehension

CHAPTER XIV.

TARASCON.

Position of Tarascon and Beaucaire opposite each other—Church of S. Martha—Crypt—Ancient paintings—Catechising—Ancient altar—The festival of the Tarasque—The Phoenician goddess Martha—Story of S. Fronto—Discussion at déjeûner over the entry of M. Carnot into Marseilles—The change in the French character—Pessimism—Beaucaire—Font—Castle—Siege by Raymond VII.—Story of Aucassin and Nicolette

CHAPTER XV.

NIMES.

The right spelling of Nimes—Derivation of name—The fountain—Throwing coins into springs—Collecting coins—Symbol of Agrippa—Character of Agrippa—What he did for Nimes—The Maison Carrée—Different idea of worship in the Heathen world from what prevails in Christendom—S. Baudille—Vespers—Activity of the Church in France—Behaviour of the clergy in Italy to the King and Queen—The Revolution a blessing to the Church in France—Church services in Italy and in France—The Tourmagne—Uncertainty as to its use—Cathedral of Nimes—Other churches—A canary lottery—Altars to the Sun—The sun-wheel—The cross of Constantine—Anecdote of Fléchier

CHAPTER XVI.

AIGUES MORTES AND MAGUELONNE.

A dead town—The Rhônes-morts—Bars—S. Louis and the Crusades—How S. Louis acquired Aigues Mortes—His canal—The four littoral chains and lagoons—The fortifications—Unique for their date—Original use of battlements—Deserted state of the town—Maguelonne—How reached—History of Maguelonne—Cathedral—The Bishops forge Saracen coins—Second destruction of the place—Inscription on door—Bernard de Treviis—His romance of Pierre de Provence—Provençal poetry not always immoral—Present state of Maguelonne

CHAPTER XVII.

BÉZIERS AND NARBONNE.

Position of Béziers—S. Nazaire—The Albigenses—Their tenets—Albigensian "consolation"—Crusade against them—The storming of Béziers—Massacre—Cathedral of Béziers—Girls' faces in the train—Similar faces at Narbonne, in cathedral and museum—Narbonne a Roman colony—All the Roman buildings destroyed—Caps of liberty—Christian sarcophagi—Children's toys of baked clay—Cathedral unfinished—Archiepiscopal palace—Unsatisfactory work of M. Viollet-le-Duc—In trouble with the police—Taken for a German spy—My sketch-book gets me off

CHAPTER XVIII.

CARCASSONNE.

Siege of Carcassonne by the Crusaders—Capture—Perfidy of legate—Death of the Viscount—Continuation of the war—Churches of New Carcassonne—La Cité—A perfect Mediæval fortified town—Disappointing—Visigoth fortifications—Later additions—The cathedral—Tomb of Simon de Montfort

CHAPTER XIX.

AVIGNON.

How Avignon passed to the Popes—The court of Clement VI.—John XXII.—Benedict XII.—Their tombs—Petrarch and Laura—The Palace of the Popes—The Salle Brûlée—Cathedral—Porch—S. Agricole—Church of S. Pierre—The museum—View from the Rocher des doms—The Rhone—The bridge—Story of S. Benezet—Dancing on bridges—Villeneuve—Tomb of Innocent VI.—The castle at Villeneuve—Defences—Tête-du-pont of the bridge

CHAPTER XX.

VALENCE.

A dull town—Cathedral—Jacques Cujas—His daughter—Pius VI.—His death—Maison des Têtes—Le Pendentif—The castle of Crussol—The dukes of Uzes—A dramatic company of the thirteenth century

CHAPTER XXI.

VIENNE.

Historic associations—Salvation Army bonnets—The fair—A quack—A vampire—The amphitrite—A carousel—Temple of Augustus and Livia—The Aiguille—Cathedral—Angels and musical instruments—S. André-le-Bas—Situation of Vienne—Foundation of the Church there—Letter of the Church on the martyrdoms at Lyons

CHAPTER XXII.

BOURGES.

The siege of Avaricum by Cæsar—The complete subjugation of Gaul—The statue of the Dying Gaul at Rome—Beauty of Bourges—The cathedral—Not completed according to design—Defect in height—Strict geometrical proportion in design not always satisfactory—Necessity of proportion for acoustics—Domestic architecture in Bourges—The house of Jacques Coeur—Story of his life—A rainy day—Why Bourges included in this book—A silver thimble—Que de singeries faites-vous là, Madeleine?—Adieu

APPENDIX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

  Tower of S. Trophimus, Arles
  Abbey of S. Victor, Marseilles
  Part of the North Cloister of Arles Cathedral
  Les Baux
  The Pont du Gard
  Béziers from the River
  An Entrance to Carcassonne
  The Cathedral and the Palace of the Popes, Avignon

GENERAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

  The Carro
  A Florentine Torch Holder
  A Horse in a Hat
  Lérins
  Aqueduct of Fréjus
  Lantern of Augustus
  Map of Massalia
  Musical Instruments from the Tomb of Julia
  Calpurnia's Monument
  An Arelaise. (From a Photograph.)
  Part of the Amphitheatre of Arles
  Back of a House at Arles
  A Boat with two rudders at Arles
  On a House at Arles
  Samson and the Lion, from the West door of the Cathedral of Arles
  On a House at Arles
  South Entrance to the Cloister, Arles Cathedral
  Church of Notre Dame de la Majeur, Arles
  Tower of the desecrated Church of S. Croix, Arles
  Part of the Courtyard of the Convent of S. Cæsarius, Arles
  Church of the Penitents Gris, Arles
  In the Cloisters, Montmajeur
  In the Cloister at Arles
  Les Baux
  Range of the Alpines from Glanum Liviæ
  Ruins S. Gabriel
  La Trémaïé
  Les Gaïé
  Caius Marius (From a bust in the Vatican.)
  Orgon and the Durance
  Mont Victoire and the Plain of Pourrières
  Sketch Plan of the Battle-fields
  Monument of Marius
  Venus Victrix
  Gardanne
  The Vielle
  Les Saintes Maries
  Early Altar, Tarascon
  Spire of S. Martha's Church, Tarascon
  Iron Door to Safe in S. Martha's Church
  King René's Castle, Tarascon
  A bit in Tarascon
  The Chapel of Beaucaire Castle
  Beaucaire Castle from Tarascon.—Sunset
  In the Public Garden, Nimes
  The Maison Carrée, Nimes
  Cathedral of Nimes.—Part of West Front
  Aigues Mortes.—One of the Gates
  Aigues Mortes.—Tower of the Bourgignons
  Sketch Map of Aigues Mortes and its Littoral Chains
  Original use of Battlements. (From Viollet-le-Duc.)
  Second stage of Battlements
  East End of the Church of Maguelonne
  Béziers.—Church of S. Nazaire
  Fountain in the Cloister of S. Nazaire, Béziers
  Types of faces, Narbonne: Modern—Sixteenth-Century Tomb in
  Cathedral—Classic Bust in Museum
  Freedmen's Caps, Narbonne
  Children's Toys in the Museum, Narbonne
  Towers on the Wall, Carcassonne
  A Bit of Carcassonne
  Inside the Wall, Carcassonne
  Papal Throne in the Cathedral of Avignon
  John XXII.
  Benedict XII.
  An Angle of the Papal Palace, Avignon
  Lantern at the Cathedral, Avignon
  Angel at West Door, Church of S. Agricole
  A Bit of the Old Wall, Avignon
  Part of Church of S. Didier, Avignon
  Bridge and Chapel of S. Benezet
  At Villeneuve
  Castle of S. André, at Villeneuve
  At Villeneuve
  A Well at Villeneuve
  Cathedral of Valence
  Doorway in the House Dupré Latour, Valence
  Doorway and Niche in the Maison des Têtes, Valence
  House in Vienne
  At Vienne
  Hurdy-Gurdy Played by an Angel
  Church of S. André-le-Bas.—The Tower
  Porte de l'Ambulance, Vienne
  A Street Corner, Bourges
  Part of Jacques Coeur's House
  Turret in the Hôtel Lallemand
  Staircase in the Hôtel Lallemand
  Sculpture over the Kitchen Entrance at Jacques Coeur's House
  Jacques Coeur's Knocker

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

The Tiber in Flood—Typhoid fever in Rome—Florence—A Jew acquaintance—Drinking in Provence—Buying bric-à-brac with the Jew—The carro on Easter Eve—Its real Origin—My Jew friend's letters—Italian dolce far niente.

Conceive yourself confronted by a pop-gun, some ten feet in diameter, charged with mephitic vapours and plugged with microbes of typhoid fever. Conceive your sensations when you were aware that the piston was being driven home.

That was my situation in March, 1890, when I got a letter from Messrs. Allen asking me to go into Provence and Languedoc, and write them a book thereon. I dodged the microbe, and went.

To make myself understood I must explain.

I was in Rome. For ten days with a sirocco wind the rains had descended, as surely they had never come down since the windows of heaven were opened at the Flood. The Tiber rose thirty-two feet. Now Rome is tunnelled under the streets with drains or sewers that carry all the refuse of a great city into the Tiber. But, naturally, when the Tiber swells high above the crowns of the sewers, they are choked. All the foulness of the great town is held back under the houses and streets, and breeds gases loathsome to the nose and noxious to life. Not only so, but a column of water, some twenty to twenty-five feet in height, is acting like the piston of a pop-gun, and is driving all the accumulated gases charged with the germs of typhoid fever into every house which has communication with the sewers. There is no help for it, the poisonous vapours must be forced out of the drains and must be forced into the houses. That is why, with a rise of the Tiber, typhoid fever is certain to break out in Rome.

As I went over Ponte S. Angelo I was wont to look over the parapet at the opening of the sewer that carried off the dregs of that portion of the city where I was residing. One day I looked for it, and looked in vain. The Tiber had swelled and was overflowing its banks, and for a week or fortnight there could be no question, not a sewer in the vast city would be free to do anything else but mischief. I did not go on to the Vatican galleries that day. I could not have enjoyed the statues in the Braccio Nuovo, nor the frescoes in the Loggia. I went home, found Messrs. Allen's letter, packed my Gladstone bag, and bolted. I shall never learn who got the microbe destined for me, which I dodged.

I went to Florence; at the inn where I put up—one genuinely Italian, Bonciani's,—I made an acquaintance, a German Jew, a picture-dealer with a shop in a certain capital, no matter which, editor of a bric-à-brac paper, and a right merry fellow. I introduce him to the reader because he afforded me some information concerning Provence. He had a branch establishment—never mind where, but in Provence—and he had come to Florence to pick up pictures and bric-à-brac.

Our acquaintance began as follows. We sat opposite each other at table in the evening. A large rush-encased flask is set before each guest in a swing carriage, that enables him to pour out his glassful from the big-bellied flask without effort. Each flask is labelled variously Chianti, Asti, Pomino, but all the wines have a like substance and flavour, and each is an equally good light dinner-wine. A flask when full costs three francs twenty centimes; and when the guest falls back in his seat, with a smile of satisfaction on his face, and his heart full of good will towards all men, for that he has done his dinner, then the bottle is taken out, weighed, and the guest charged the amount of wine he has consumed. He gets a fresh flask at every meal.

"Du lieber Himmel!" exclaimed my vis-à-vis. "I do b'lieve I hev drunk dree francs. Take up de flasche and weigh her. Tink so?"

"I can believe it without weighing the bottle," I replied.

"And only four sous—twenty centimes left!" exclaimed the old gentleman, meditatively. "But four sous is four sous. It is de price of mine paper"—brightening in his reflections—"I can but shell one copy more, and I am all right." Brightening to greater brilliancy as he turns to me: "Will you buy de last number of my paper? She is in my pocket. She is ver' interesting. Oh! ver' so. Moche information for two pence."

"I shall be charmed," I said, and extended twenty centimes across the table.

"Ach Tausend! Dass ist herrlich!" and he drew off the last drops of Pomino.
"Now I will tell you vun ding. Hev you been in Provence?"

"Provence! Why—I am on my way there, now."

"Den listen to me. Ebery peoples hev different ways of doing de same ding. You go into a cabaret dere, and you ask for wine. De patron brings you a bottle, and at de same time looks at de clock and wid a bit of chalk he mark you down your time. You say you will drink at two pence, or dree pence, or four pence. You drink at dat price you have covenanted for one hour, you drink at same price anodder hour, and you sleep—but you pay all de same, wedder you drink or wedder you sleep, two pence, or dree pence, or four pence de hour. It is an old custom. You understand? It is de custom of de country—of La belle Provence."

"I quite understand that it is to the interest of the taverner to make his customers drunk."

"Drunk!" repeated my Mosaic acquaintance. "I will tell you one ding more, ver' characteristic of de nationalities. A Frenchman—il boit; a German—er sauft; and an Englishman—he gets fresh. Der you hev de natures of de dree peoples as in a picture. De Frenchman, he looks to de moment, and not beyond. Il boit. De German, he looks to de end. Er sauft. De Englishman, he sits down fresh and intends to get fuddled; but he is a hypocrite. He does not say de truth to hisself nor to nobody, he says, I will get fresh, when he means de odder ding. Big humbug. You understand?"

One morning my Jew friend said to me: "Do you want to see de, what you call behind-de-scenes of Florence? Ver' well, you come wid me. I am going after pictures."

He had a carriage at the door. I jumped in with him, and we spent the day in driving about the town, visiting palaces and the houses of professional men and tradesmen—of all who were "down on their luck," and wanted to part with art-treasures. Here we entered a palace, of roughed stone blocks after the ancient Florentine style, where a splendid porter with cocked hat, a silver-headed bâton, and gorgeous livery kept guard. Up the white marble stairs, into stately halls overladen with gilding, the walls crowded with paintings in cumbrous but resplendent frames. Prince So-and-So had got into financial difficulties, and wanted to part with some of his heirlooms.

There we entered a mean door in a back street, ascended a dirty stair, and came into a suite of apartments, where a dishevelled woman in a dirty split dressing-gown received us and showed us into her husband's sanctum, crowded with rare old paintings on gold grounds. Her good man had been a collector of the early school of art; now he was ill, he could not attend to his business, he might not recover, and whilst he was ill his wife was getting rid of some of his treasures.

There we entered the mansion of a widow, who had lost her husband recently, a rich merchant. The heirs were quarrelling over the spoil, and she was in a hurry to make what she could for herself before a valuer came to reckon the worth of the paintings and silver and cabinets.

In that day I saw many sides of life.

"But how in the world," I asked of my guide, "did you know that all these people were wanting to sell?"

"I have my agents ebberywhere," was his reply.

I thought of the Diable boiteux carrying the student of Alcala over the city, Madrid, removing the roofs of the houses, and exposing to his view the stories of the lives and miseries of those within.

I was at Florence on Easter Eve. A ceremony of a very peculiar character takes place there on that day at noon. In the morning a monstrous black structure on wheels, some twenty-five feet high, is brought into the square before the cathedral by oxen, garlanded with flowers. This erection, the carro, is also decorated with flowers, but is likewise covered with fireworks. A rope is then extended from the carro to a pole which is set up in the choir of the Duomo, before the high altar. For this purpose the great west doors are thrown open, and the rope extends the whole length of the nave. Upon it, close to the pole, is perched a white dove of plaster.

Crowds assemble both in the square and in the nave of the cathedral. Peasants from the countryside come in in bands, and before the hour of noon every vantage place is occupied, and the square and the streets commanding it are filled with a sea of heads.

[Illustration: The Carro.]

At half-past eleven, the archbishop, the canons, the choir, go down the nave in procession, and make the circuit of the Duomo, then re-enter the cathedral, take their places in the choir, and the mass for Easter Eve is begun. At the Gospel—at the stroke of twelve, a match is applied to a fusee, and instantly the white dove flies along the rope, pouring forth a tail of fire, down the nave, out at the west gates, over the heads of the crowd, reaches the carro, ignites a fusee there, turns, and, still propelled by its fiery tail, whizzes along the cord again, till it has reached its perch on the pole in the choir, when the fire goes out and it remains stationary. But in the meantime the match ignited by the dove has communicated with the squibs and crackers attached to the carro, and the whole mass of painted wood and flowers is enveloped in fire and smoke, from which issue sheets of flame and loud detonations. Meanwhile, mass is being sung composedly within the choir, as though nothing was happening without. The fireworks continue to explode for about a quarter of an hour, and then the great garlanded oxen, white, with huge horns, are reyoked to the carro, and it is drawn away.

The flight of the dove for its course of about 540 feet is watched by the peasants with breathless attention, for they take its easy or jerky flight as ominous of the weather for the rest of the year and of the prospects of harvest. If the bird sails along without a hitch, then the summer will be fine, but if there be sluggishness of movement, and one halt, then another, the year is sure to be one of storms and late frosts and hail.

Now what is the origin of this extraordinary custom—a custom that is childish, and yet is so curious that one would hardly wish to see it abolished?

Several stories are told to explain it, none very satisfactory. According to one, a Florentine knight was in the crusading host of Godfrey de Bouillon, and was the first to climb the walls of Jerusalem, and plant thereon the banner of the Cross. He at once sent tidings of the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre back to his native town by a carrier pigeon, and thus the Florentines received the glad tidings long before it reached any other city in Europe. In token of their gladness at the news, they instituted the ceremony of the white pigeon and the carro on Easter Eve.

[Illustration: A Florentine torch holder.]

Another story is to the effect that this Florentine entered the city of Jerusalem before the first crusade, broke off a large fragment of the Holy Sepulchre, and carried it to Florence. He was pursued by the Saracens, but escaped by shoeing his horse with reversed irons. Another version is that he resolved to bring back to Florence the sacred flame that burnt in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Accordingly he lighted thereat a torch, and rode back to Italy with the torch flaming. But to protect it from the wind, he rode with his face to the tail of his steed, screening the torch with his body. As he thus rode, folk who saw him shouted "Pazzi! Pazzi!"—Fool! Fool! and this name was assumed by his family ever after. The Pazzis of Florence every year paid all the expenses of the carro till quite recently, when the Municipality assumed the charge and now defray it from the city chest. Clearly the origin of the custom is forgotten; nevertheless it is not difficult to explain the meaning of the ceremony.

In the Eastern Church, and still, in many churches in the West, the lights are extinguished on Good Friday, and formerly this was the case with all fires, those of the domestic hearth as well as the lamps in church. On Easter Day, fresh fire was struck with flint and steel by the bishop, and all candles, lamps and hearths were rekindled from this new light. At the present day one of the most solemn scenes in the Eastern Church is this kindling of the Easter fire, and its communication from one to another in a vast congregation assembled to receive it and carry it off to their homes. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the new fire kindled and blessed by the patriarch, is cast down from the height of the dome.

In Florence, anciently, it was much the same. The archbishop struck the Easter fire, and it was then distributed among the people; but there were inconveniences, unseemly scuffles, accidents even, and the dove was devised as a means of conveying the Easter fire outside the Duomo, and kindling a great bonfire, whereat the people might light their torches without desecrating the sacred building by scrambling and fighting therein for the hallowed flame. At this bonfire all could obtain the fire without inconvenience. By degrees the bonfire lost its significance, so did the dove, and fables were invented to explain the custom. The bonfire, moreover, degenerated into an exhibition of fireworks at mid-day.

One morning my Jew friend insisted on my reading a letter he had just received from his daughter, aged fourteen. He was proud of the daughter, and highly pleased with the letter.

It began thus: "Cher papa—nous sommes sauvés. That picture of a Genoese lady you bought for 200 francs, and doubted if you would be able to get rid of, I sold before we left home for Provence to an American, as a genuine Queen Elizabeth for 1,000 francs." Then followed three closely-written pages of record of business transactions, all showing a balance to the good, all showing a profit nowhere under thirty per cent. Finally, the letter concluded: "Mamma's back is better. Louis and I went on Sunday to see a farm. A cow, a stable, an old peasantess saying her rosary, a daughter knitting—all real, not waxwork. Votre fille très devouée, LEAH."

"That is a girl to be proud of," said my acquaintance. "And only fourteen! But hein! here is another letter I have received, and it is awkward." He told me that when he had been in London on business he had lodged in the house of a couple who were not on the best of terms. The husband had been a widower with one child, a daughter, and the stepmother could not abide the child. Whilst M. Cohen, my friend, was there, the quarrels had been many, and he had done his best to smooth matters between the parties. Then he had invited them over to visit the Continent and stay at his house. They had come, and he had again to exercise the office of mediator. "And now," lamented my good-hearted friend, "nebber one week but I get a letter from de leddy. Here is dis, sent on to me. Read it." The letter ran as follows:—

"Do write to me. I fear my last letter cannot have reached you, or you would have answered it. I am miserable. My husband is so cross about that little girl, because I cannot love the nasty little beast. Oh, Mr. Cohen, do come to London, or let me come abroad and live in your house away from my husband and that child. You were so sensible and so kind. I can't bear to be longer here in the house with my husband and the spoiled child."

My friend looked disconsolately at me.

"What am I to do?" he asked. "She writes ebery week, and I don't answer.
And my wife sends on dese letters."

"Do?" said I. "Send this one at once to Madame Cohen, and ask her to answer it for you. That London lady will never trouble you again."

The following circumstance I relate, not that it has the smallest importance except as a characteristic sketch of Italian dolce far niente, and as a lesson to travellers. The proper study of mankind is man, and a little incident such as occurred to me, and which I will now relate, raises the curtain and shows us a feature of humanity in Italy. When I hurried from Rome, I sent off all my luggage by goods train to England, except such articles as I could compress into a Gladstone bag; a change of raiment of course was there. But mark the cruelty of fate. My foot slipped on a white marble stair, and I rent a certain garment at the knee. I at once dived into my Gladstone bag and produced another pair, but found with a shock that they also had suffered—become threadbare, and needed attention from a tailor. What was to be done? I had to leave Florence at noon. The discovery was made the night before. I rose early, breakfasted early, and hung about the shop door of a tailor at 8 A.M. till the door was opened, when I entered, stated my case, and the obliging sartore promised that the trifling remedy should be applied and I should have my garment again in one hour. "In one hour!" he said, holding up his hand in solemn asseveration.

Nine o'clock came; then ten, and my raiment had not returned. I flew to the tailor's shop and asked for my garment. "It was all right," said he, "only the thread being knotted. It should be sent to my inn." So I returned and waited. I had my lunch, paid my bill, packed my bag, looked at my watch. The omnibus was at the door. No garment. I ran to the tailor's. He listened to my tale of distress with an amiable smile on his face, then volunteered to come with me to my inn, and talk the matter over with the host. Accordingly he locked up his shop and sauntered with me to Bonciani's. Bonciani and he considered the circumstances at length, thrashed the subject thoroughly. Then, as the horses were being put into the omnibus—"Come," said the tailor, "I have a brother, a grocer, we will go to him."

"But why?" asked I. "Do you see, the boxes are being put on the omnibus. I want my—garment."

"You must come with me to my brother's," said the tailor. So to the grocer's went we. Vainly did I trust that the journeyman who was engaged on my article of apparel lodged there, and that, done or undone, I could recover it thence. But no—not so. The whole story was related with embellishments to the brother, the grocer, who listened, discussed, commented on, the matter.

"There goes the 'bus!" I shouted, looking down the street. "Even now, if you will let me have the article, I can run to the station and get off; I have my ticket."

"Subito! subito!" said the tailor.

Then the grocer said that the thing in request might be sent by post. "But," I replied, "I am going into France, to Nice, and clothes are subjected to burdensome charges if carried across the frontier."

"Ten minutes!" I gasped. "Almost too late."

A moment later—

"Appunto!"

"The clock is striking. I am done for."

"Appunto!" and he lighted a cigarette.

So I had to travel by night, instead of by day.

CHAPTER II.

THE RIVIERA.

No ill without a counterbalancing advantage—An industry peculiar to Italy—Italian honesty—Buffalo Bill at Naples—The Prince and the straw-coloured gloves—The Riviera—A tapestry—Nice—Its flowers—Notre Dame—The château—My gardener—A pension of ugly women—Horses and their hats—Antibes—Meeting of Honoré IV. and Napoleon—The Grimaldis—Lérins, an Isle of Saints—A family jar—Healed.

That was not all. The dawdling of the tailor not only made me lose the mid-day train, but delayed my arrival in Nice for twenty-four hours. I took the night train to Pisa, where I purposed catching the express from Rome. But the express came slouching along in a hands-in-the-pocket sort of way, and was over half-an-hour late, and would not bestir itself to pick up the misspent, lost moments between Pisa and Genoa, the consequence of which was that the train for Nice had gone on without waiting, and accordingly those who desired to prosecute their journey in that direction were obliged to loiter about in the small hours of the morning between a restaurant, half asleep, and a waiting-room where the electric light had gone out, till the hour of seven.

Before leaving Italy, I may mention an industry which I found cultivated there, original, and I believe unique. When I procured postage stamps at the post-offices, I was surprised, if I took them home with me, to find that their adhesive power had failed. I also received indignant letters from correspondents in England remonstrating with me for posting my communications to them unstamped. This surprised me, and at Rome, where I had been accustomed to purchase franco-bolli at the head office, I took them home and regummed them. But the remarkable phenomenon was, that such stamps as were purchased at tobacconists' shops had gum on them—only those acquired at the post-offices were without. I learned that the same peculiarity existed at Florence, and indeed elsewhere in Italy, and finally the explanation was vouchsafed to me. The functionary at the post-office passes a wet sponge over the back of the sheets of franco-bolli supplied to him, thus removing the adhesive matter. When he sells stamps at the window, he hopes that those who purchase will proceed at once to apply them to their letters, without perceiving their deficiencies. As soon as the stamp becomes dry it falls off, and quite a collection of stamps of sundry values can thus be gathered at every clearing of the box, and the postal clerk reaps thence a daily harvest that goes a long way towards the eking out the small pittance paid him by Government. It is interesting to see the directions taken by human enterprise.

Whilst I was in Rome, Buffalo Bill was in Naples exhibiting his troupe of horses and gang of Indians. The Italian papers informed the public of a remarkable exploit achieved by the Neapolitans. They had done Buffalo Bill out of two thousand francs. It had been effected in this wise. His reserved seats were charged five francs. Four hundred forged five-franc notes were passed at the door of his show by well-dressed Neapolitans, indeed, the élite of Neapolitan society; and the trick played on him was not discovered till too late. Now consider what this implies. It implies that some hundreds of the best people, princes, counts, marquesses at Naples lent themselves to see Buffalo Bill's exhibition by a fraud. They wanted to see and be seen there, but not to pay five francs for a seat. There must have been combination, and that among the members of the aristocracy of Naples. The Italian papers did not mention this in a tone of disgust, but rather in one of surprise that Italians should have been able to overreach a Yankee. But I do not believe such a fraud would have been perpetrated at Rome, Florence, or Milan. It was considered quite in its place at Naples.

A lady of my acquaintance was staying in a pension at Naples. There resided at the time, in the same pension, a prince—Neapolitan, be it understood. One day, just before she left, she brought in a packet of kid gloves she had purchased, among them one pair, straw-coloured. She laid them on the table, went out for two minutes, leaving the prince in the room with the gloves. On her return, the prince and the straw-coloured gloves were gone. She made inquiries of the landlady, who, when told that the prince had been in the room, laughed and said: "But of course he has them. You should never leave anything in the room unguarded where there is a prince." Two days after the departure of this lady, the straw-coloured gloves were produced by his highness and presented by him to a young lady whom he admired, then in the same pension.

No evil comes without a counterbalancing good. The day I was detained in Florence by that tailor, and the loss of the night train at Genoa were not immense evils. A furious gale broke over the coast, and when at seven in the morning we steamed out of Genoa, the Mediterranean was sullen, the rain poured down, and the mountains were enveloped in vapour. But as we proceeded along the coast the weather improved, and before long every cloud was gone, the sky became blue as a gentian, and the oranges flamed in the sunshine as we swept between the orchards. Had I gone by the noon train from Florence I should have travelled this road by night, had I caught the 3.27 A.M. train I should have seen nothing for storm and cloud. And—what a glorious, what an unrivalled road that is! It was like passing through a gallery hung with Rénaissance tapestry, all in freshness of colour. The sea deep blue and green like a peacock's neck, the mountains pale yellow, as shown in tapestry, with blue shadows; the silvery-grey olives, the glossy orange trees with their fruit—exactly as in tapestry. Surely the old weavers of those wondrous webs studied this coast and copied it in their looms.

I have said that the sea was like a peacock's neck; but it had a brilliancy above even that. As I have mentioned tapestry I may say that it resembled a sort of tapestry that is very rare and costly, of which I have seen a sample in a private collection at Frankfort, and another in the Palazzo Bardini at Florence. It consists of the threads being drawn over plates of gold and silver. In the piece at Florence the effect of the sun shining through a tree is thus produced by gold leaf under the broidery of tree-leaves. Silver leaf is employed for water, with blue silk drawn in lines over it. So with the sea. There seemed to be silver burnished to its greatest polish below, over which the water was drawn as a blue lacquer.

And Nice. What shall I say of that bright and laughing city—with its shops of flowers, its avenues of trees through which run the streets, its gardens, its pines and cactus and aloe walks? Only one blemish can I pick out in Nice, and that is a hideous modern Gothic church, Notre Dame, filled with detestable garish glass, so utterly faulty in design, so full of blemish of every sort, that the best wish one could make for the good people of Nice is that the next earthquake that visits the Riviera may shake this wretched structure to pieces, so as to give them an opportunity of erecting another in its place which is not a monstrosity.

The Avenue de la Gare is planted with the eucalyptus, that has attained a considerable size. It is not a beautiful tree, its leaves are ever on the droop, as though the tree were unhealthy or unhappy, sulky at being transplanted to Europe, dissatisfied with the climate, displeased with the soil, discontented with its associates. It struck me as very much like a good number of excellent and very useful souls with whom I am acquainted, who never take a cheerful view of life, are always fault-finding, hole-picking, worry-discovering, eminently good in their place as febrifuges, but not calculated to brighten their neighbourhood.

What a delightful walk is that on the cliff of the château! The day I was at Nice was the 9th of April. The crags were rich with colour, the cytisus waving its golden hair, the pelargonium blazing scarlet, beds of white stock wafting fragrance, violets scrambling over every soft bank of deep earth exhaling fragrance; roses, not many in flower, but their young leaves in masses of claret-red; wherever a ledge allowed it, there pansies of velvety blue and black and brown had been planted. In a hot sun I climbed the château cliff to where the water, conveyed to the summit, dribbled and dropped, or squirted and splashed, nourishing countless fronds of fern and beds of moss, and many a bog plant. The cedars and umbrella pines in the spring sun exhaled their aromatic breath, and the flowering birch rained down its yellow dust over one from its swaying catkins.

I see I have spoken of the cytisus. I may be excused mentioning an anecdote that the sight of this plant provokes in my mind every spring. I had a gardener—a queer, cantankerous creature, who never saw a joke, even when he made one. "Please, sir," he said to me with a solemn face, "I've been rearing a lot o' young citizens for you."

"Have you?" said I, with a sigh. "I fancy I'm rearing a middling lot of them myself."

"Please, sir," said he to me on another occasion, "that there lumbago be terrible trying to know what to do with it."

"Oh!" said I with alacrity, "nothing equals hartshorn and oil applied to the small of the back with a flannel. You have a wife—"

"Yes, sir." He looked at me vacantly. "And yet, it's a beautiful thing."

"Well—yes, when it attacks one's deadly enemy."

"I've cut it down, and trimmed it out, and tied it up," said the gardener.
He meant the Plumbago capense!

That man never would allow that he was beaten. My eldest boy one day held some pansies over the fumes of ammonia, turned them green, and showed them as a lusus naturæ to the gardener. He smiled contemptuously. "Them's the colour of biled cabbage," said he; "I grew them verdigris green—beds of 'em, when I was with Squire Cross."

One day he said to me: "The nurserymen call them plants big onias just to sell them, I call them little onias; you shall just see them I grow, them be the true big onias, as large as the palm of your hand."

I tumbled, by hazard, at Nice into a pension, where I believe I saw at table d'hôte a score of the ugliest women I have ever had the trial of sitting over against in my long career. I found out, in conversation with a porter at the station afterwards, that this pension was notorious for the ugly women who put up there, and it is a joke among the porters when they see one very ill-favoured arrive by the train, that she is going to be an inmate of the Hotel ——. The name I will not give, lest any of my fair readers, in that spirit of delightful perversity that characterises the sex, should go there and spoil the credit of the pension. I could not endure the table d'hôte there for many days. An ugly woman is, or may be, restful for the eye when her face is in repose—not when she is chewing tough beef or munching an apple. Besides, Lent was passed.

When I was in Rome there appeared in a comic paper at the beginning of Lent the picture of a very stout lady, who thus addressed her spouse. "Hubby, dear! you haven't kissed me." "Can't, love," he replies, "fat is forbidden in Lent." Ugliness was uncongenial to me in radiantly beautiful Nice, and in sparkling Easter—so I packed my Gladstone bag and went further.

The snow still lying on the crests of the Maritime Alps and the intermediate ranges broken into fantastic forms, the lovely range of red porphyry Esterel to the south, with the intensely blue sea drawing a thread of silver about its base, together made a picture of incomparable loveliness.

The sun was so hot that the horses had already assumed their summer hats. "A good man is merciful to his beast," and the good-hearted peasants of the Riviera and Provence, thinking that their horses must suffer from the burning heat of the sun, provide, them with straw hats, very much the same sort of hats as girls wear, adorned also with ribbons and rosettes, but to suit the peculiarity of formation of the horse's head, two holes are cut in the hat through which the ears are drawn. The effect is comical when you are being driven in a carriage with a pair of horses before you wearing straw hats, and their ears protruding, one on each side, like the horns in the helmets of mediæval German knights. One lovely glimpse of the sea I got that I shall never forget. The blue sea was in the background gleaming; against it stood a belt of sombre cypresses; before the cypresses the silvery, smoke-grey tufts of olive, in a grove; and before the olive, in mid-distance, a field of roses in young claret-red foliage—a landscape of belts of colour right marvellous.

[Illustration: A Horse in a Hat.]

Then Antibes—a blue bay with castle on one horn, on the other the little town, its lighthouse, and a couple of bold towers.

It was at Cannes that Prince Honoré IV. of Monaco encountered Napoleon in 1815, as he was returning from Paris in his carriage to take possession of his principality, that had been restored to him by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.

The Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard stopped his carriage, made the prince descend, and conducted him before a little man with clean-cut features, whom he at once knew as the Emperor—returned from Elba.

"Où allez-vous, Monaco?" asked Napoleon bluntly.

"Sire," replied Honoré IV., "je vais à la découverte de mon royaume."

The Emperor smiled.

"Voilà une singulière rencontre, monsieur," said Napoleon. "Deux majestés sans place; mais ce n'est peut-être pas la peine de vous déranger. Avant huit jours je serai à Paris, et je me verrai forcé de vous renverser du trône, mon cousin. Revenez plutôt avec moi, je vous nommerai sous-préfet de Monaco, si vous y tenez beaucoup."

"Merci de vos bontés, sire," replied the prince in some confusion; "mais je tiendrais encore plus à faire une restauration, ne dut-elle durer que trois jours."

"Allons! faites la durer trois mois, mon cousin, je vous garderai votre place de chancellier, et vous viendriez me réjoindre aux Tuileries."

The two monarchs separated after having shaken hands amicably. The story would be spoiled by translation.

The Grimaldis anciently possessed much more extensive territories than at present. At Cagnes, near Vence, is their ancient château, now converted into a hospital and barrack, and they owned considerable property, manors and lordships near Cannes and Vence. We shall meet them again as Princes of Les Baux.

The present reigning family are not properly Grimaldis. The last representative was a daughter, married to the Count of Thorigny in 1715, who, on the extinction of the male line in 1731, assumed the name of Grimaldi, and succeeded to the principality.

[Illustration: Lérins.]

Everywhere, for the mere delight of the eye, not from thought of any gain gotten out of it, is the Judas tree covered with pink flowers, standing among the cool grey olives. Here and there is a mulberry bursting into fresh, green, vivid leaf; in every garden the palms are rustling their leaves in the pleasant air, and are glistening in the sun. Out at sea lies the low, dull island of Lérins; but, though low and dull, full of interest, as taking the place to Provence occupied by Iona to Scotland and Lindisfarne to Northumberland, a cradle of Christianity, a cradle rocked by the waves. I cannot do better than quote Montalembert's words on this topic. "The sailor, the soldier, or the traveller who proceeds from the roadstead of Toulon to sail towards Italy and the East, passes among two or three islands, rocky and arid, surmounted here and there by a slender cluster of pines. He looks at them with indifference, and avoids them. However, one of these islands has been for the soul, for the mind, for the moral progress of humanity, a centre purer and more fertile than any famous isle of the Hellenic Archipelago. It is Lerins, formerly occupied by a city, which was already ruined in the time of Pliny, and where, at the commencement of the fifth century, nothing more was to be seen than a desert coast. In 410, a man landed and remained there; he was called Honoratus. Descended from a consular race, educated and eloquent, but devoted from his youth to great piety, he desired to be made a monk. His father charged his eldest brother, a gay and impetuous young man, to turn him from his purpose; but, on the contrary, it was he who won over his brother. Disciples gathered round them. The face of the isle was changed, the desert became a garden. Honoratus, whose fine face is described to us as radiant with a sweet and attractive majesty, opened here an asylum and a school for all such as loved Christ."

From this school went forth disciples, inspired with the spirit of Honoratus, to rule the churches of Arles, Avignon, Lyons, Vienne, Fréjus, Valence, Nice, Metz, and many others. Honoratus himself, taken from his peaceful isle to be elevated to the metropolitan see of Arles, had for his successor, as Abbot of Lerins, and afterwards as Bishop of Arles, his pupil and kinsman S. Hilary, to whom we owe the admirable biography of his master. Hilary was celebrated for his graceful eloquence, his unwearied zeal, his tender sympathy with all forms of suffering, his ascendency over a crowd, and by the numerous conversions which he worked. But, indeed Lerins was a hive whence swarmed forth the teachers and apostles of Southern Gaul. Hence came the modest Vincent of Lerins, the first controversialist of his time, who at the head of his greatest work inscribed a touching testimony of his love for that poor little isle where he had spent so many years, and learned so much. Salvian, also, the "Master of Bishops," as he was called, though himself only a priest, was held to be the most eloquent man of his day, only second to S. Augustine. S. Eucherius of Lyons, S. Lupus of Troyes, who had married the sister of S. Hilary, were other prelates trained in this holy isle. When Troyes was threatened by Attila and his Huns, Lupus boldly went forth to meet him. "Who art thou?" asked the bishop. "I am Attila, the Scourge of God," was the reply. The intrepid gentleness of the bishop disarmed the ferocious invader. He left Troyes without injuring it, and drew back to the Rhine. And this isle through Lupus claims some regard from a native of Britain, for Lupus, trained in it, was chosen by the Council of Arles in 429 to combat the Pelagian heresy in Great Britain, along with S. Germanus of Auxerre.

Into the same carriage with me, at Nice, got a pair—a young couple; he, with an amiable but weak face; she heavy featured, her only charm her eyes. There had been a breeze between the pair, evidently, before they took their places, and she was sulky. He, poor fool, endeavoured by every means to allay her ruffled temper, always ineffectually. He pulled out his Guide Joannot, and endeavoured to interest her in the places we passed, their history, their antiquities; in vain, she sat scowling, with pursed lips. He called her attention to the red porphyry cliffs of Esterel with purple shadows in their hollows, to the blue bays opening between their red horns—all to no purpose, she would not look out at the window. He produced a box of jujubes, and offered her one between his thumb and forefinger. She refused it, but thrust her fingers into the box and extracted one for herself. Then she leaned back in the carriage, drew her hat over her face, and exposed to view only a chin and a mole under it, that moved up and down as she sucked her jujube.

Next, the feeble, amorous husband, endeavoured to get hold of her hand. She snatched it away vixenishly. Hectic spots formed on his cheeks, and perspiration stood in great drops on his brow. This was clearly the first ruffle he had experienced on the hymeneal sea. He got out of the carriage at Cannes, and hung about the buffet till the extreme moment, hoping to betray her into tokens of uneasiness lest he should miss the train. As it was, at the final moment he swung himself into another carriage. She thrust her hat a little on one side, protruded an eye to see what became of him, then covered it once more. He got in at the next station, breathless, in pretended agitation. He had nearly lost his place—he was all but left behind. Had he been so left, what would she have done? She vouchsafed no reply. Tired, however, of looking into the crown of her hat, she now removed it and placed it on her lap. The face was still sullen, with the jowl hanging down, the coarse lips set in defiance, and an ugly flicker in the eyes. Now the hectic-cheeked husband became boisterous in merry conversation with other travellers near him, but always with an eye reverting at periods to his wife, whose lips retained a contemptuous curl. Then he sulked in his turn, folded his arms, thrust forth his feet under the seat opposite, and looked gloomily into the space between them. Thereat she began to hum an air from "La Traviata," when suddenly the situation was altered. By some marvellous instinct she discovered that I had been observing the little play; the comedy à deux, and had made my comments thereon—not in her favour.

Instantly the expression of her countenance changed. She turned to her husband. "Gustave!" said she, "Je souffre," and she laid her head on his shoulder. A flash in his face, full of surprise sliding into ecstasy. He could not understand this sudden change in her disposition, and I am quite sure she never gave him the key.

I left the carriage at Fréjus, and at parting caught her eye. She laughed, so did I. We understood each other. Now, as it happened, at Nice, when I was seeking a carriage, I entered one where were a lady and an elderly gentleman.

At the first glance I recognised a "Milord Anglais," the lady was his daughter. At the same moment that I said to myself, "This carriage will never do for me," the lady addressed me, "Monsieur! ce voitoore est réservée à noos doox."

If I had gone to Fréjus with them, I should have missed that little episode of the young married couple and that would have grieved me, and the reconciliation would not have been brought about before Marseilles. Oh, how grateful I was to fate, that the lady had said, "Monsieur! ce voitoore est réservée à noos doox."

CHAPTER III.

FRÉJUS.

The freedman of Pliny—Forum Julii—The Port of Agay—The Port of Fréjus—Roman castle—Aqueduct—The lantern of Augustus—The cathedral—Cloisters—Boy and dolphin—Story told by Pliny—The Chaine des Maures—Désaugiers—Dines with the porkbutchers of Paris—Siéyès—Sans phrase—Agricola—His discoveries.

It was strange. The first person I thought of, on arriving at Fréjus, was not Julius Cæsar the founder of this old port—no, nor Agricola, a native of Fréjus, who is so associated with British history, especially with Scottish—no! it was Pliny's sick freedman, about whom that polished orator wrote in his nineteenth letter, in Book V. of his collected epistles. Pliny was a native of Como, he had two villas on the lake. He was a kindly, honourable, somewhat bumptious man—but what great talkers think small matter of themselves? He had a slave, a Greek, named Zosimus, of whom he writes to his friend Paulinus, who had an estate at Fréjus: "He is a person of great worth, diligent in his services, and well skilled in literature; but his chief talent is that of a comedian. He pronounces with great judgment, propriety, and gracefulness; he has a very good hand too upon the lyre, and performs with more skill than is necessary for one of his profession. To this I must add, he reads history, oratory, and poetry. He is endeared to me by ties of long affection, now heightened by the danger in which he is."

Pliny had given Zosimus his liberty, but Zosimus remained attached to his service as freedman. Some years before, this accomplished slave had overstrained his voice, and begun to spit blood. Thereupon Pliny sent him to Egypt, where in the dry air he seemed better, and after a while Zosimus returned to his master, apparently completely restored. Pliny goes on, in his letter: "Having exerted himself again beyond his strength, there was a return of his former malady and a spitting of blood. For this reason, I intend to send him to your farm at Forum Julii (Fréjus), having often heard you mention the exceeding fine air there, and recommend the milk of that place as very salutary in disorders of this nature. I beg you will give directions to your people to receive him into your house, and to supply him with what he shall have occasion for: which will not be much; for he is so temperate as not only to abstain from delicacies, but even to deny himself the necessaries his ill health requires. I shall supply him with all that is needful for his journey. Farewell."

Now, on reaching Fréjus on a balmy day in April, when the air was soft as butter-milk, and the sun was hot, not scorching, my thoughts went at once to poor Zosimus, with his hacking cough, his delicate complexion, come here to inhale the soft air and drink the warm milk. And I thought of him the more from certain experiences of my own relative to Como. I went to that city in January from England, thinking that it lay in a warm nook, and that there I might bask for a few weeks, when recovering from an attack of bronchitis, till I was able to go further south.

I went into an hotel where I had stayed in summer and been comfortable; but—oh!—never shall I forget the horrors of that hotel in January! I was the sole person staying in it. There was no bedroom that had in it a stove. In the salle-à-manger the fire was lighted for half-an-hour at nine in the morning, then let out and not rekindled through the day. The fountain in the square was frozen. An icy wind descended from the Alps. My bedroom was a tomb; brick-floored, stone vaulted. My bed measured two feet across, and the sheet and crimson duvet were so nicely adjusted as exactly to fit the bed, when unoccupied. When I lay in the bed, that duvet was balanced like a logan stone on the ridge of my body shivering under it, and it oscillated as I shivered. Then it slid gently to the floor, and left me with a chill and damp linen sheet over me, the thermometer being below zero, and I—afflicted with a cough.

Next morning I fled—fled to Milan—was stabbed there by the Tramontana, fell ill, escaped to Genoa, and there recovered.

Now, perhaps, the reader will understand how it was that naturally, and at once, my mind turned to poor Zosimus, as I entered Fréjus. His dust is laid there—I doubt not. He had wandered there—some eighteen hundred years ago, and, like me, had inhaled the sweet scent of the flowering beans, looked on the Esterel chain glowing as if red-hot in the sunshine, and had entertained, like me, kindly, affectionate thoughts of that somewhat pedantic, conceited, but eminently worthy Caius Plinius Cæcilius Secundus.

Although Julius Cæsar is said to have formed the port at Forum Julii, and to have given the place his name, it is probable that there was a settlement there earlier. He, however raised it into consideration by the construction of the harbour. The port is there still, within its moles, and guarded by two castles on heights above it, but—alas for the well being of Fréjus, the harbour is filled with sand and soil brought down by the river Argens and washed in by the waves, and is now a level meadow, every portion belonging to a farmer cut off from another portion by a ditch, in which spring the rushes and croak the frogs. Augustus enlarged the port, and after the decisive battle of Actium (B.C. 31) sent thither the galleys captured from Anthony. The sea is now two miles distant.

The mistake of making ports at the mouths of rivers was one constantly made by the Romans. The Greeks knew better—Marseilles has not been choked.

Hard by, at Agay, is a perfect natural harbour. The red porphyry mountains rise in fantastic shapes above it, and plunge in abrupt crags into the deep blue water. It is a little harbour that calls out "Come and rest in me from every wind." Now a lighthouse has been erected at the extremity of one of the natural moles of rock, a coastguard establishment crowns the heights, two or three fishermen's cottages nestle in the lap of the bay—that is all.

On the south of the port of Fréjus is an old castle. There must have existed there originally a nodule of rock, but out of this a platform has been formed artificially of earth gathered from the port, and this platform was converted in Roman times into a fort. On one side may be seen a curious contrivance for resisting the outward pressure of the earth heaped up within. The basement wall has not buttresses thrust forth, but consists of a series of semicircular concave depressions in its face. In Mediæval times a strong castle with circular towers was erected on the ancient basement, that also is now in ruins, the ledges where the old Roman wall ended and the Mediæval wall sprang at half the thickness of the former were, when I saw them, dense with white irises.

[Illustration: Aqueduct of Fréjus.]

Fréjus was supplied in Roman times with an aqueduct, the arches of which, broken and ruinous, still stretch across the plain, and were destined to convey into the town the waters of the Siagnole, from a distance of about fifty miles. The arcade is about forty-five feet high.

Following a path that leads along the ancient mole one reaches a quadrangular tower of Roman masonry with a stone conical roof, which goes by the name of the Lantern of Augustus, and is supposed to have served as lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour, but the height is too insignificant for this purpose, it is not over thirty-five feet, and there is no indication of any contrivance whereby it could have been utilised for the purpose of a pharos. In the Torlonia Museum at Rome is a bas-relief representing the port of Ostia, with its pharos; that is a structure of several stages, each receding as it is superposed on the other, and the topmost sustains the ever-burning fire—quite a different sort of building from this tower at Fréjus.

[Illustration: Lantern of Augustus.]

Fréjus is a cathedral city, though numbering only 3,500 inhabitants, but it is an ancient see, dating from about 374, when it was an important maritime place. Its fortunes had gone down in the Middle Ages, and the citizens and prelates were never in a position to build much of a cathedral. The present church is of the eleventh century, both small and plain. It contains little of interest save a fine painting on gold ground of S. Margaret and other saints, brought from the ancient Monastery of Lerins. The organ gallery is supported on granite pillars, Classic, found among the ruins of the amphitheatre. The baptistery is surrounded by eight porphyry columns with Corinthian capitals taken from a pagan temple.

The carved doors of the cathedral deserve to be seen, they are of rich Rénaissance work. In the north aisle of the cathedral to the west is the tomb of two bishops of the seventeenth century, Bartholomew and Peter de Camelin, kneeling; and at the east end are two alabaster monuments of bishops three centuries earlier. The cloisters are of the usual Provençal type, the arcade resting on double columns, but walls have been erected blocking up the spaces, and the interior yard is turned into the bishop's fowl-house.

But—is not that sufficient? I am not writing a guide book; and I enter into these details here solely because the guide books pass over the cathedral very slightingly, and concern themselves chiefly with the Roman antiquities. Of these latter, besides what I have mentioned, there is the Porte Dorée, one arcade only of what was formerly a noble portico facing the harbour; also a fine amphitheatre, now traversed by a highway, not however as perfect as those of Nimes and Arles. Fragments also remain of the ancient theatre, but they are unimportant.

Hard by the Hôtel de Ville is a beautiful red porphyry figure of a boy and a dolphin which one would have taken to have been Rénaissance work, but that the Rénaissance artists would hardly have taken the pains to sculpture such intractable material as porphyry for a petty town of the size of Fréjus. The group recalls that very odd story told by Pliny in one of his letters, which, as it may not be familiar to many of my readers, I will venture here to repeat. He says that the story "was related to him at table by a person of unsuspected veracity." At Hippo, in Africa, when the boys were playing in the lake that communicates with the sea, and the lads were contending together which could swim furthest, one boy found a dolphin play about him as he swam, and he ventured to climb on the back of the fish. The dolphin was not alarmed, but conveyed the little fellow on his back to the shore. The fame of this remarkable event spread through the town, and crowds came down to the water's edge to see the boy and ask him questions. Next day he went into the water again, and once more the dolphin appeared, played round him, and again took him on his back. This happened several times, and the circumstance was bruited throughout the neighbourhood, so that great numbers of people came in from the countryside to see the fish play in the water with the children, and carry them on its back. At last the authorities of the town, annoyed at the concourse of the curious, destroyed the playful dolphin, a bit of barbarity that excites Pliny's wrath.