CHAPTER XXVI

THE CAMARGUE

Sometimes a lonely sea-mew breaks the monotony of the sky, or, some huge-winged bird, the "stalking hermit of the lagoon," casts a flitting shadow.

In summer there are no flowers in this forsaken region, only the white inflorescence of salt crystals—frozen tears of generations of vanished peoples one might fancy them. And, as if in mockery, a mirage, born of those bitter tears, hovers on the horizon as the hot sun breeds an invisible vapour from which arise distant cities and a labyrinth of smooth lagoons that shimmer alluringly across the white solitude.

Such is the Camargue. The description, however, applies in strictness to the summer season. In winter the salt with which the ground is saturated is not visible; there is only a moist oozy-looking soil, growing reeds and stunted bushes.

Mistral's heroine, MirÈio, who dies in the Camargue at the Church of Les Saintes Maries, falls down exhausted before she arrives there, by the shores of the great lake of the Camargue and is awakened by the stinging of the dangerous gnats which infest the whole region in the hot season, and perhaps account for the malaria which lies in wait for the careless traveller.

The driver of the carriage in which we traversed this river-encircled district, told us that in summer the water in these branches of the Rhone fell so low that the fish died in immense quantities, and this attracted great swarms of flies whose sting became very perilous in consequence of their gruesome banquet.

This deserted region is a near neighbour of the Crau, separated only by the river at the southern end from the Field of Pebbles; yet in all the Camargue, as the natives say, you cannot find a stone to throw at a dog—a mode of expression betraying the sentiment of the country as regards our four-footed friends and brothers.

Our journey was from Aigues Mortes to Les Saintes Maries, a drive across the Camargue of about 36 kilometres—36 kilometres of strange, silent, mournful country, well-nigh desert, for the salt in the soil prevents cultivation and all growth is stunted and wild and of little use except here and there for grazing purposes. From time immemorial it has been the home of herds of black cattle, "wild cattle" they are generally called, and in all the poems and accounts of the district, one finds highly-coloured descriptions of the driving of these ferocious creatures to pasture and of the exciting barbaric ceremony of branding them in the spring. They are always spoken of as being extremely formidable, and their appearance in great hordes, fierce and untamed, their dashing owners in pursuit on splendid steeds, is described with charming picturesqueness.

Our driver kept a keen look-out for these creatures as we made our way across the plain. At last, just as we were in despair of seeing them, he pointed out their hoof-marks where they come down to the water to drink. It was a thrilling moment, and we scanned the distance with eagerness, listening for the thunder of galloping feet. Suddenly the driver pulled up and gave an exclamation.

"Les VoilÀ!"

Alas! a disillusion, the first we had met with in Provence.

A little way off, in quite domestic tranquillity, were some twenty or thirty amiable, decorous-looking black beasts who had presumably never "thundered" or dreamt of it in all their well-spent lives. Day after day, from byre to pasture and from pasture to byre, at no time even in their giddiest calfdom had they given their guardian—who was now superintending their repast—a moment's uneasiness! Fiery, untamed cattle, at any rate in the winter season, are not to be seen on the Camargue.

The red flamingoes, too, are really pink, and very pale at that; but it is beautiful to see them flying in great flocks over the lake of the Vaccares, and settling to feed or to exchange ideas on some wild islet on whose low shores beat white-capped fussy little waves which the smallest mistral quickly raises on its shallow water.

We visited this lake from Arles on another occasion, for the Camargue is too big to see all at one time. Even as it was, our day was crowded—to Aigues Mortes in the morning across the plain, visiting Les Saintes Maries, and back to Arles in the evening.

After Carcassonne one felt there was nothing more to experience in the shape of a mediÆval city. Yet Aigues Mortes—the city of St. Louis, the City of the Marsh, with its wonderful ramparts and square towers, all unchanged since the days of the Crusaders—brought before the eye of the imagination yet another aspect of the fascination of the Middle Ages. The walls are said to be built on the models of the fortified towns of Syria and to be almost a repetition of those of Ascalon. Here, as in many mediÆval cities, were originally wooden balconies overhanging the base of the walls, the battlements being in fact a wall with ingress at intervals to the balcony. Later was substituted for the wooden balcony projecting galleries of stone on corbels, and these stone galleries or machicolations are comparatively recent.

To this scene belongs, among other historical events, the splendid procession of St. Louis and his followers as they embarked from this city of his founding for the first crusade.

The place is called Aigues Mortes from the dead branches of the river,[31] and its situation in this low-lying ground near the sea, with the whole Camargue lying flat and mournful before it, bears out the suggestion of the strange melancholy name.

Ancient writers of romance are fond of talking about the "frowning walls" of a city. On looking back at Aigues Mortes as one recedes from it across the Camargue one admits their justification. The dark high ramparts, with their stern-looking square towers—unlike the round extinguisher towers of Carcassonne—do most undeniably "frown."[32]

The city with its great gateway seems not to belong to our present life at all, in spite of its hotels and shops and the people in the market-place. It is as if a fragment of the tenth or eleventh century had been dropped by some accident when the Scroll of Time was being rolled up!

The illusion is almost painfully perfect, producing that curious bewilderment with which we provincial mortals (by no means yet citizens of the universe) are assailed when forced to realise—as well as intellectually to accept—the fact of a state of existence absolutely alien to our own experience.

Another delightful expedition in the Camargue is to the Church of St. Gilles on the outskirts of this extraordinary desert through which the main line runs at this point; and many of the trains stop at the little station only a short distance westward from Arles. By a singular chance the curÉ happened to be in the train on his way to Nimes, to read a paper about the many vexed archÆological questions regarding this famous and exquisite church, this "ne plus ultra of Byzantine art," as MÈrimÉe calls it; and he was much delighted to talk about the building of which he is immensely proud.

Such a Church for beauty and interest had never before existed! These were the sentiments of the good curÉ, a rosy-cheeked, comfortable, courteous old antiquary. It certainly merits his enthusiasm.

The three great richly sculptured arches of the faÇade are magnificent of their kind. It seems as if all the saints and angels of Christendom had alighted in a swarm upon these sumptuous portals. They cluster on frieze and cornice, on arch and bracket and niche, in multitudes, the whole work perfectly balanced and finely executed, and resulting in an effect of romantic richness combined with the pious simplicity of sentiment which is characteristic of all Southern Romanesque churches. The crypt is especially magnificent.

But the church of which one hears the most in Provence is "Les Saintes Maries," or "Santa Maria de la Mar," as it was sometimes called in the twelfth century. It is another of the fortified churches of the littoral, a sister to Maguelonne and still more famous. At one end of our long day's journey stood Aigues Mortes, at the other Les Saintes Maries. The little white speck above the level of the plain on the far horizon, which can be discerned when about ten miles from Aigues Mortes, grows bigger and bigger, till at last the strange, rude, characteristic outline of the lonely church by the sea fascinates and holds the eye till one reaches it after the 36 kilometres of desert.

The shrine of the three holy women is visited every year by hundreds of pilgrims, and many a sick person is cured by the power of the relics, say the curÉ and the Catholic Church—by the not less astonishing potency of the "unconscious mind" assert the more advanced of the modern schools of mental science.

The curÉ said that he had seen several hundred cures. Many paralytics and those who had been bitten by mad dogs came on this pilgrimage, and he had known only two cases of failure. The bones of Mary, mother of Jacob, and of her daughter, Mary SalomÉ, with those of their servant Sara, are all preserved in a richly painted reliquary, which is let down among the people from its shrine above the tribune. This is the moment of salvation, and hundreds of arms are stretched imploringly towards it, and hundreds of voices are raised in supplication; and judging by the many well-authenticated accounts some mysterious healing power is actually set in motion.

Anything more forlorn than the little village that has grown up around the church is difficult to imagine. There is not a soul stirring, and scarcely a sound is to be heard indicating human life. The Camargue stretches to westward. The sea beats on the sandy beach a little way beyond the village square. One hears the waves quietly running in upon the shore. In the middle of the square stands an ancient carved stone cross. The people of the place have the reputation of being rude and almost savage, and their ignorance is said to be incredible.

The exterior of Les Saintes Maries is rude, warlike, even sterner in aspect than Maguelonne, and it stands bare and solitary on this desert spot with not a tree or a green thing near it; only the spectral, thinly clad, unearthly looking trees of the Camargue dimly in sight here and there in the grey distance.

The door of the church was open, and we entered. Again, as in Maguelonne, great arches and apses, sombre, religious, primitive, the candles and artificial flowers with which the altars were decked for Christmas standing out pathetically against the gloom.

In one of the side chapels the curÉ was busy painting the background of a crÈche. He was occupied with the Star in the East when we arrived, and was so absorbed that he did not hear our footsteps. When we came nearer he turned and descended from the ladder on which he had mounted, explaining that he had been appointed to the cure only a few months and found to his dismay that the benighted inhabitants had never in all their lives had a crÈche at Christmas! So he was busying himself to redeem them from this state of spiritual darkness. The palm-trees and la sainte vierge were expected to-morrow from Nimes. Le Christ had already arrived.

The curÉ went forward to give a touch to the manger as he spoke.

"Vous voyez les vaches—qu'elles sont jolies!" He stood back to contemplate them. The boy who had conducted us to the church remained gazing in dumb admiration, and though he was peremptorily sent on a message by the curÉ, he returned almost at once to gaze anew, which brought down on him an impatient reproof.

"Va t'en, va t'en; qu'est-ce que tu fais la avec ta bouche grand-ouverte; sauve toi donc!"

And poor Jules had to shut his mouth and tear himself away from the alluring scene.

We visited the tomb of Sara and saw the sacred reliquary containing the bones of the saints, which were saved from peril at the time of the great Revolution by the faithful curÉ of that day, who took out the precious relics from the chests, leaving in their place some ordinary bones and hiding the real ones, which were afterwards replaced with great pomp when the danger was over.

The roof is formed of stone slabs, the same as that of Maguelonne, and the view from it is as extensive but far more solitary.

"La mer indÉfinie, l'Éternelle limite blanche À l'horizon, et la lande, toujours, aux salicornes basses et aux tamaris clairsemÉs. C'est une heure exquise de mÉlancholie, de pieux idÉal ... l'immense arÈne jaune bordeÉ par la mer bleu et l'horizon de sable; les lagunes nageÉs dans une brume lumineuse d'ou rien ne surgit que vers le nord-est, le pic Saint Loup, comme une fantÔme."

We left this lonely church with the twilight falling upon it, and the evening silence. In the village square little whirls of loose sand were coming up from the beach with the gusts of wind, harbingers of a coming mistral, and one could hear always in the strange quiet, the beat and retreat of the waves.