Saint-Remy

On the way up from Les Baux to the col, and for some distance beyond, the country is arid and cold; but the wealth of aromatic and flowering shrubs that carpet the ground in these stony regions, and the breathing spirit of the spring, gives them a charm of their own that is far removed from desolation. The road was lonely enough. A few flocks of sheep and goats clattered among the loose stones of the hillsides that were on either side, among the pines and the thyme and rosemary and the yellow brooms; and the shepherds watched and whistled to them, never very far away. A motor-car passed me as I rested at the top of the hill, and a carriage jogging along the straight road to the "plateau des antiquitÉs" offered itself for a lift; for I was on my way to see something that every tourist in these parts comes to see, and this one was plying for hire in this lonely region in the ordinary way of business. But otherwise I had the road to myself in the early morning, and took my time over the six or seven kilometres that were all that I was yet able to accomplish.

The two noble monuments that stand in an open space a mile or so to the south of Saint-Remy, and dominate the wide expanse on all sides, can be seen long before one reaches them, from the south. The wildness of the hills has begun to give place to cultivation, but they stand by themselves with no other buildings near them, reminders of a story that has never been forgotten by the poorest and least educated of those who work within sight of them.

The so-called mausoleum is the older of the two. It has an inscription that has caused considerable difficulties to the antiquarians. I need not go into the controversy, but will accept the conclusions set forth by Mr. Cook, who deals with the question in his own lucid and convincing way.

The inscription is to the effect that Sextus, Lucius, and Marcus, Julii, and sons of Caius, dedicated this monument to their parents; and within the colonnade on the top of it are two statues which have been supposed to represent these objects of filial piety. But the inscription is not less than a hundred years later than the date of the monument on which it was carved, and the probability is that some rich colonials "calmly appropriated a fine 'antiquity,' wrote their own names on it, and buried the respected corpses of their parents within a building originally intended for entirely different uses."

The bas-reliefs on the four sides of the base represent a Roman triumph, and there seems little doubt that this noble monument was erected to commemorate the great victory of Caius Marius over the barbarians, on the spot where he had first met them. It was erected by Julius CÆsar, the nephew of Marius, and the two figures represent the great general himself, and Catullus, his colleague in the consulship, when their combined forces crushed the Cimbrians upon the Raudine Plain.

The Triumphal Arch, which stands close to the monument, was also erected by Julius CÆsar, to celebrate his great victory over Vercingetorix. It is the earliest Roman triumphal arch outside Italy, and there are probably only two in Rome that are earlier.

170a

171a

The photographs will show the wonderful state of preservation of the monument, as well as its beautiful details. The arch also preserves much of its detail, and the two monuments together have a striking effect. Mr. Cook draws a just comparison between these sane and beautiful relics of classical antiquity and the misery and squalor of the mediÆval ruins of Les Baux. It is a comparison that strikes one forcibly throughout Provence. We shall see other examples of Roman architecture—in the Pont du Gard, the Arenas at NÎmes and Arles, and elsewhere—and in comparison with them all but fragments of the oldest churches and palaces and fortifications that came after them are things of yesterday. And yet the Roman works seem to be built to stand for ever, and tell their tale so that all may read it; while with the buildings of centuries after, the tale is confused often beyond unravelment. We know of the history that led to the erection of these "antiquities" at Saint-Remy, and the men who made them, almost as if they were things of a generation ago. Move forward a thousand years and the long history of Les Baux was just beginning. Its princes crept out of obscurity, and its stately buildings arose, to arrive at splendour through long centuries, to decay and to lie in ruins for centuries more; and all the time these other buildings within a few miles of them, whose life has been twice as long as theirs in all their phases, have continued almost in their first perfection. And you must move on for much more than a thousand years before you find the Christian legends that derived from the people and events which these monuments commemorated firmly fixed in the minds of men, and giving rise to the beautiful buildings which now vie with those of the Romans in interest. In this country, one is not allowed to forget how many hundreds of years it took for the church to produce its fine flowers of architecture, when one is continually coming across those of a civilization that was old before the Church ever existed.

Not far from these Roman "antiquities" is an interesting church and cloister of the twelfth century, but I did not turn aside to see it, as walking had now become a painful business, and it took me half an hour to limp down the long avenue that led to the pleasant town of Saint-Remy. It is a gay, clean little town, its broad streets and squares shaded by great limes and planes and chestnuts, its gardens full of flowering shrubs, and rich with beds of colour. One seems to have got back to the country about Grasse, but here the flowers are grown for seed, not for scent. Saint-Remy's chief industry is the production of seeds for the horticulturists. I should have liked to see something of it, but had to content myself with sitting still until the departure of the omnibus for Avignon.

This was a great clumsy petrol-driven conveyance in which the men stood in one compartment, holding on to anything within reach as it lurched and swayed along the road, and the women sat in another. I think it was market-day. At any rate the seated compartment was full of peasant women nursing their baskets, every window closed and the heat considerable. I might have borne that for the sake of a seat, of which there was one vacant, but when I opened the glass door between the compartments I was met with such a powerful efflux of garlic that I closed it again hurriedly and swayed and lurched with the rest until we reached ChÂteaurenard.

It was a charming, fertile country that we passed through, with one farm succeeding another—comfortable-looking, rambling, stone-built houses and outbuildings, shielded from the fierce winds by rows of tall cypresses, and even the fields and market-gardens fenced in with dried reeds. The mistral and the bise, when they really set to work, are a scourge. But as old FranÇois Mistral used to say when he heard grumbling about the weather: "Good people, there is One above who knows what He is about, and what is good for us. Supposing those great winds which bring life to Provence never blew, how would the mists and fogs of our marshes be dispersed? And if we never had the heavy rains, how would our wells and springs and rivers be fed? We need all sorts, my children."

At ChÂteaurenard we changed omnibuses for the five miles' journey to Avignon. They were mostly townspeople now who crowded the compartments. There was a family in the corner of mine—a mother with three handsome daughters who crocheted or knitted busily during the whole journey, and a father who sat silent and looked learned, but amiable. Perhaps he was a fÉlibre; they are mostly learned and amiable; and Avignon is one of their chief centres.

We crossed the Durance, a broad and mighty river, soon to join its waters with those of the RhÔne. The sun was setting over it, and the knitting ladies laid down their wool and exclaimed at the beauty of the scene. After another mile or so we were set down just outside the ramparts of the ancient city.