Saint-Gilles and Montmajour

This was to be the last full day's walk. I had to meet a friend at Avignon the next afternoon; then to Arles with no further time for walking; and then home.

There was a lot of ground to cover. The first stage, after going halfway to Arles by train, was an eight-mile walk across the plain to Saint-Gilles. The train started at six, and soon after seven I was on the road, on a fine still spring morning, and in company with an old peasant woman who was also going to Saint-Gilles, and had suggested in the train that we should walk together. I had not known quite how to refuse, but had thought that after a mile or so I might say that I was in a hurry, and push on from her. ProvenÇal was her tongue, and French is not mine; the burden of a conversation lasting for two hours daunted me.

We walked and talked together for about a mile, and although she must have been getting on for seventy, and carried a heavy basket, her steady pace was just a trifle faster than my usual one at the beginning of a long day's walk. I could not for shame suggest that I should drop back; besides, she would have offered to walk more slowly. So when we had exhausted the first burst of conversation, I drew myself together, lifted my hat, and with a word of apology, forged on ahead with all the air of a Marathon racer.

She chased me for miles. Whenever I looked back I saw her plodding form on the straight road across the marsh. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn't keep it up. The walk to Saint-Gilles was only to be the beginning of my day. At a wide turn of the road I took what looked to be an easy short cut across the marsh. If it had been easy, of course she would have taken it too, and the end of it was that when I came out on to the road again after my windings there was her black determined figure a quarter of a mile ahead of me. So I let her take her pace, and I took mine, and she crossed the great suspension bridge into Saint-Gilles nearly half an hour before I did. I saw her the whole way, and she never looked round. I hope she thought I was ahead of her.

Scarcely any of its original importance is left to Saint-Gilles, which dates from the earliest dawn of ProvenÇal history. It was the Phoenician Heraktra. In those days the branch of the RhÔne upon which it stands was an open trade route. The Phoenician traders came to it from their expeditions to Britain, by way of the Seine valley and the RhÔne. Early in the twelfth century the building of one of the noblest churches in Provence was begun here; and its remains, in spite of the successive destructions and mutilations it has received, make it still well worth a visit.

All that is left in its original state is the wonderful carved faÇade, which is finer even than the famous one, of about the same date, of St. Trophimus at Arles, and takes in three portals instead of one. It is in its original state only as far as its main structure is concerned, for its figures have been sadly mutilated by successive generations of enraged Protestants. But one can be thankful to them for sparing it at all, instead of treating it as they did the church behind it.

The story of St. Gilles is charmingly told by M. J. Charles-Roux, in his "LÉgendes de Provence."

He was a Greek, of royal lineage. In all the country there was not to be found a man richer than his father, or a woman more chaste and charitable than his mother. He was baptized with great rejoicing, and from an early age his parents sought to bring him up in their faith. At seven years of age he was taught his letters, and thus early he devoted himself to study and the service of God. Modest and of fine address, he grew into the flower of his country's youth; his hair was fair and curling, his skin as white as milk, he had a delicate nose and ears, white teeth and a sweet mouth.

The day came when God was ready to show His designs concerning him. He was on his way to school, when he saw crouching in the gutter a poor cripple, pale, hideous and horrible. The child addressed him, and he replied, "Sir, hunger is killing and cold overwhelming me; death is near, and I only want to die." Gilles's eyes filled with tears, and as he had neither silver nor gold he gave the poor wretch his coat, and he at once arose cured and thanked God with such fervour that presently more than a hundred persons appeared on the scene.

The fame of Gilles's holiness began to spread, and soon afterward he healed a man bitten by a venomous snake.

After his father and mother died he was pressed to marry by his vassals, who wished him to continue his royal race, but he begged a respite. He was much troubled by the crowd that besieged his doors—crippled, dumb, blind, lame,—who besought him to heal them. He was willing to do so, but dreaded the worldly fame that was beginning to attach itself to his name. He wished to seek a road that would bring him nearer to God, and he determined to go to Rome.

He ordered a great feast in his palace, and at night, when all were sleeping, overcome with the fumes of wine, after praying for a long time he left his chamber softly, and made his escape from the battlements, hidden in a fog. He was never seen there again.

After wandering on foot for a long time, he came to the sea, and saw a ship being driven on to the rocks in a storm. He prayed to God, and the storm abated, and the ship came safe to shore. He asked the sailors to take him to Rome, and they, recognizing him for a holy man, took him on board.

They were for the most part ProvenÇals, and were carrying a rich cargo of corn from Russia, silks, precious stuffs and spices. They sailed for days under a clear sky, and never had to touch a rope, for God was guiding them.

They landed at Marseilles, and Gilles, who had been so rich, went from door to door, begging his food. After a time, having heard of the good bishop, CÆsar of Arles, he went to that ancient city. He lodged with a widow whose daughter had been paralysed for twelve years. When he had prayed for a moment beside her bed she arose well and joyful. When the good bishop heard of this miracle, he sent his archdeacon to bring Gilles to him. The archdeacon found him praying in the church. The bishop received him with affection and honour and kept him by him for twelve years, during which time he wrought many miracles.

But this was not the sort of life Gilles had dreamed of. He escaped from Arles and plunged into the wild forest which surrounded it. At last he came to a monstrous rock in which some steps had been cut. He climbed up them and found a pious hermit with whom he lived for twelve years in perfect communion of prayer and meditation.

Although his retreat was remote and hidden, the piety and the miracles of St. Gilles were so renowned that at last it was discovered. So he resolved to find a hiding-place more impenetrable still.

He wandered far into the forest until he came to a cave choked with brambles. He hid its opening with branches, leaves and clods of turf, and took it as his hermitage. A fresh spring welled up at a short distance from it, round which grew a cress upon which he sustained himself until God sent him a doe which gave him milk. Every day while he was at his prayers she went into the forest to feed, and returned at fixed hours to the cave, where Gilles had prepared for her a couch near his own.

At this time Florenz was king in Provence, under Charlemagne. Holding his Christmas court at Montpelier, he entertained all the lords of the country round at banquets and parties of the chase. One evening as they were feasting news was brought in by the royal huntsman of a wonderful white hind that had been tracked to her hiding-place in the forest, and early the following morning the king set out with a great retinue to chase her. The chase was long and Florenz found himself ahead of his companions with the hind flying in front of him. As she was disappearing among the trees, he launched an arrow at her, and immediately the hermit, Gilles, appeared, to whom the hind had flown for shelter, and whose hand the king's arrow had pierced.

After this the king conceived a great veneration for the saint, visited him often alone and pressed him to accept presents. Gilles resisted him for a long time, but said at last: "Sire, if you really wish to give me a portion of your lands, of your treasures, of your vessels of gold and silver, found a monastery upon this spot, and fill it with monks for the service of God, who shall pray day and night for your people and for your law."

"I will do so," said the king, "if you will be their abbot."

After much hesitation Gilles consented, and the noble abbey was built and greatly enriched by gifts from the king. Gilles continued to live in it the same life as he had lived in the woods, and that his flesh might be still further mortified he prayed that the wound in his hand might never heal; which prayer was granted to him.

After a time Gilles's great renown reached Charlemagne, who wished to confess his sins to so holy a man, and sent an embassy to invite him to Paris. After consultation with his brethren he went there, and was received with the utmost veneration and magnificence. But the honour done to him caused him nothing but shame.

Charlemagne confessed all his sins but one, which he had not the courage to avow. Gilles pleaded with him for twenty days, but in vain. One Sunday, as he was going to celebrate the Mass at St. Croix he saw a demoniac chained to a pillar of the church. His prayers drove out the demon; all the bells in the city began to ring, and the king came with a great crowd to hear the Mass. During the celebration Gilles prayed that the king might be brought to confess the sin that it would cost him so much to acknowledge, and an angel appeared above the altar and deposited near the sacred Host a little letter which God Himself had sent His faithful servant. You can see the scene sculptured on a pillar in the cathedral of Chartres. The letter announced that the famous sin, of which we do not know the details, might be remitted to the king together with all other sins humbly confessed and secretly detested; also that the saint's own life would soon end and his reign in glory begin.

Gilles, refusing the king's rich presents, made the journey back to his monastery in great pain because of his still open wound, but in great joy, and learnt that during his absence his monks had behaved in all respects as he could have wished them. He resumed his customary life of prayer and meditation, but feeling that he would not for long continue to direct the affairs of his flourishing abbey, and that the favour of kings was fleeting, he determined to go to Rome to put his monastery under the protection of the Holy See.

The Pope received him with great honour and granted his request. He also showed his interest in the church that St. Gilles had built by giving him two doors of cypress wood, wonderfully carved. St. Gilles threw them into the Tiber, commanding the water to carry them to his church. He himself arrived at the moment when they stranded on the banks of the river, in perfect preservation, and was made happy by this still further proof of divine favour.

His work was now done, and he prepared himself for death. His monks stood around him, scarcely able to recite the sacred offices because of their sobs. Just before midnight he began to recall to them events in the life of the Saviour, and at the moment of death he had a vision of the glorious resurrection of Our Lord, and prayed St. Michael to conduct him to God. These were his last words; he made signs of blessing those who knelt around him, and two of them saw angels take the soul that issued from his lips, to carry it to Paradise.

Although the story which I have condensed speaks of Charlemagne, it was his grandfather, Charles Martel, in whose reign St. Gilles lived, and who gave him shelter when he fled from the Saracens who had attacked his monastery. But St. Gilles did die in peace in it in 721, and he had long before handed over the property to the Holy See, for the Pope's Bull taking it over in 685 is still extant.

The fine crypt, which fortunately still remains, was constructed in the eleventh century to receive the tomb of the saint, and its high altar consecrated by the Pope in 1095. The church above it was begun twenty years later, and its magnificence can be judged from the ruins of the choir, which stretch far to the east of the present building, as well as from the carving of the front which took over thirty years to complete. In 1562 the victorious Protestant troops murdered the priests and the choir boys and threw their bodies into the well that is still to be seen in the crypt. The church, says Mr. T. A. Cook, "was alternately desecrated by the reformers and used as a fortress by the churchmen." It was completely destroyed in 1622, the tomb of St. Gilles removed and the crypt filled with rubbish; "and the faÇade itself seems only to have been left standing in order that its carvings might the more openly be debased and mutilated." At the Revolution still further havoc was wrought, and it was not until seventy years later that the crypt was excavated and restored under the auspices of the Commission of "Monuments Historiques," who also restored as far as possible the faÇade.

Considering the vicissitudes it has gone through this splendid work retains a surprising effect. It stretches right across the front of the church, except for the two narrow towers on each flank, and is of a wonderful interest and richness. Another wonderful relic is the Vis de St. Gilles, the spiral stone staircase that stands among the ruins of the choir, and the tower. It is famous everywhere among architects for the delicacy and preciseness of its stone-cutting and vaulting.

Another thing to see in Saint-Gilles is the Maison-Romaine, a tall town house of the twelfth century which was restored at the same time as the church. It comes as something of a surprise to the inexpert, it looks so very modern—rather like the sort of house an advanced architect might build in Munich today. But its proportions are beautiful, and the quiet wall space contrasting with the decorations of the windows is very effective. Indeed, the advanced architect might do worse than copy such a model. After eight hundred years he could learn more of the twelfth century builder than he could teach him.

276a

277a

I took train to Arles and walked straight out of the station towards the Abbey of Montmajour two miles distant. Arles itself was to wait for a few days.

The road lay along a broad shady avenue too full of traffic for pleasurable tramping, but turned off presently from the main road to Tarascon, and the mass of the great Abbey could be seen towering above the trees across the open country.

This great Benedictine abbey, under the stones of which lie buried the ancient kings of Arles, was founded in the sixth century, and its splendid church was rebuilt in the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.

It was situated on an island among the lagoons of the Camargue, but now stands overlooking the fertile plain right away to the sea, on what is no more than a low hill overgrown on one side by a little wood.

I left the road, which goes round by the front, and climbed up through the trees, to find myself in a littered farmyard, with the walls of a seventeenth century building, now in ruins, towering above me. The remains of a carved stone staircase finished off by a rickety wooden bridge ran up under a bold arch, and had a very extraordinary effect, springing thus out of the straw and muck of the yard. This great palace, joined on to the original monastic buildings, seems strangely out of place even now, more than a hundred years after both suffered the same destruction. It was built when the abbey was at its richest and proudest, but was not occupied for long, for the Revolution swept new and old alike away. Of all the treasures it contained, only three remain—a Bible of 1320, which is in the museum at Arles, an abbatial cross in the museum of Cluny, and a twelfth century pyx, now in the Louvre.

What remain of the buildings themselves have suffered no less changes of ownership. When they were sold by the state after the Revolution many of the walls were broken down and the stones taken away to build bridges and houses and to mend roads. The painter RÉatlu of Arles bought the great tower and saved it. The chapel of St. Croix became the property of a fisherman, but finally fell into the hands of the city of Arles, and was restored and maintained by them. This stands apart from the rest of the abbey, of which the site is still private property. Until recently the later buildings were partly inhabited by peasants. Gradually the rest has been bought back, and classed among the "Monuments Historiques." The buildings thus saved from further desecration are the church with its crypt and cloisters, the tower, the "Confessional" of St. Trophimus, and the chapel of St. Croix, and each and all of these are remarkable.

The church, which was begun early in the eleventh century and was never quite finished, is of a severe and grateful simplicity. The enormous crypt beneath it is of a still earlier date, and is still more remarkable. The apse is divided into five little chapels opening on to an ambulatory, and from each can be seen the high altar. The cloisters are best preserved of anything, and retain their stone penthouse roofing.

But the most interesting thing about Montmajour is the little chapel, part scooped out of the living rock, part built in the ninth century, which is called the Confessional of St. Trophimus.

You descend to it down stairs cut in the side of the rock. It stands in a sort of overgrown garden, and looks as if it were trying to hide itself. Its rock chambers were no doubt used by the early Christians for hiding and shelter, in the same way as the catacombs at Rome. At the east end is a big chamber almost entirely filled with a stone bench, which opens into two other chambers. Whether St. Trophimus was ever there or not, it has very much the appearance of a confessional. And scepticism sinks before this pathetic little secret place, in which beyond doubt the holy mysteries were celebrated and the faith taught at a date before one can be certain of perhaps any other ecclesiastical remains in the country, whatever antiquity they may claim.

The curious Eastern-looking Chapel of St. Croix stands at some little distance from the rest of the abbey buildings. It is in the form of a Greek cross with four semi-circular apses radiating from a central square-domed tower, and a porch attached to that on the west. Its date is 1019, but there was probably a cemetery on this spot at a much earlier date, and it was built entirely as a mortuary chapel. Viollet le Duc wrote of it:

"The monks brought their dead here processionally; the body was placed in the porch and the brethren remained outside. When Mass was said, the body was blessed, and it was conveyed through the chapel and out at the little south door, to lay it in the grave. The only windows which lighted this chapel looked into the walled cemetery. At night, a lamp burned in the centre of this monument, and, in conformity with the use of the first centuries of the Middle Ages, these three little windows let the gleam of the lamp fall upon the graves. During the office for the dead a brother tolled the bell hung in the turret, by means of a hole reserved for the purpose in the centre of the dome."

This little architectural gem with its delicate exterior carvings has been very carefully preserved. Up to the eighteenth century it was the object of a popular and crowded pilgrimage on May 3rd, but on the destruction of the abbey the precious indulgences with which it had been dowered by successive Popes were transferred to the church of St. Julian at Arles, and it is now nothing but a "Monument Historique."