Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1

IV.

CATHEDRALS OF THE VALLEYS.

Orange.

Lying on the Rhone, and almost surrounded by the papal Venaissin, is a tiny principality of less than forty thousand acres. This small state has given title to more than one distinguished European who never entered its borders, and who was alien to it not only in birth, but in language and family. So great was the fame of its rulers that this small, isolated strip of land suffered for their principles, and probably owes to them much of its devastation in the terrible Wars of Religion. From the well-known convictions of the Princes of Orange, the country was always counted a refuge for heretics of all shades, and in 1338 they were in sufficient force to demolish the tower of the Cathedral. Later in history, Charles IX declared William of Nassau “an outlaw” and his principality “confiscate”; and in 1571, there was a three days' massacre of Protestants. In spite of this horrid orgy the Reformers rose again in might and soon prevented all celebration of Catholic rites. Refugees fleeing from the Dragonnades of DauphinÉ and of the CÉvennes poured into the principality; and when the Princes of Orange were strong enough to protect their state, its Catholics lived restricted lives; but when the Protestant power waned, Kings and Captains of France raided the land in the name of the Church. And at the death of William of Orange, King of England, Louis XIV seized the capital of the state, razed its great palace and its walls, and after the Treaty of Utrecht had awarded the principality to the French crown, treated the defenceless Huguenots with the same impartial cruelty he had meted to their fellow-believers in other parts of the kingdom. Orange's changes in religious fate are not unlike those of NÎmes, with this essential difference, that here Catholicism has conquered triumphantly. Where ten worship in the little Protestant temple, a thousand throng to the Mass.

Both in history and its monumental Roman ruins, the capital of this province, Orange, is one of the richest cities of the Southland, but its Cathedral is very poor and mean. The plan is one of the simplest of the ProvenÇal conceptions, a “hall basilica,” archÆologically interesting, but in its present state of patch and repair, architecturally commonplace and unbeautiful. In spite of Protestant attacks and Catholic restorations, the XI century type has been maintained, a rectangle whose plain double arches support a tunnel vault and divide the interior into four bays. The piers are heavy and severe; and between them are alcoves, used as chapels. The choir, narrower than the nave, is preceded by the usual dome, and beyond it is a little unused apse, concealed from the rest of the interior by a wall. Unimportant windows built with distinctly utilitarian purpose successfully light this small, simple room, and no kindly shadow hides its bareness or diminishes the unhappy effect of the paintings which disfigure the walls. The Cathedral's exterior is so surrounded by irregular old houses that the traveller had discovered it with some difficulty. It has little that is worthy of description, and after having entered by a conspicuously poor Renaissance portal only to go out under an uninteresting modern one, he found himself lost in wonder that the Cathedral-builders of Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth should have utterly failed in a town which offered them such inspiring suggestions as the great Arch of Triumph and the still greater Imperial Theatre, besides all the other remains of Roman antiquity which, long after the building of Notre-Dame, the practical Maurice of Orange demolished for the making of his mediÆval castle.

Cavaillon.

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It was growing dusk, of a spring evening, when the traveller arrived at Cavaillon and wandered about the narrow streets and came upon the Cathedral. Glimpses of an interesting dome and a turret-tower had appeared once or twice above the house-tops, leading him on with freshened interest, and there was still light enough for many first impressions when he arrived before the low cloister-door. But here was no place for peaceful meditation. An old woman, coiffed and bent, brushed past him as she entered, a chair in each hand; and as he effaced himself against the church wall, a younger woman went by, also chair-laden. Two or three others came, talking eagerly, little girls in all stages of excitement ran in and out, and little boys came and went, divided between assumed carelessness and a feeling of unusual responsibility. Then a priest appeared on the threshold, not in meditation, but on business. Another, old and heavy, and panting, hurried in; and through the cloister-door, Monsieur le CurÉ, breviary in hand, prayed watchfully. A little fellow, running, fell down, and the priest sprang to lift him; the child was too small not to wish to cry, but too much in haste to stop for tears. The priest watched him with a kindly shrug and a smile as he ran on;—there was no time for laughing or crying, there was time for nothing but the mysterious matter in hand.

“What is it?” the traveller finally asked.

“Ah, Monsieur, to-morrow is the day of the First Communion. We all have just prayed, just confessed, in the church; and our parents are arranging their places. For to-morrow there will be crowds—everybody. You too, Monsieur, are coming perhaps? The Mass is at half-past six.”

Such was the living interest of the place that the traveller moved away without any very clear architectural impression of the Cathedral, except of the curiously narrow bell-turret and of the height of the dome.

He did not see the early Mass, but toward ten wandered again to the Cathedral and entered the cloister-door. It was a low-vaulted, sombre little Cloister which all the chattering, animated crowds could not brighten. Formerly two sides were gated off, and priests alone walked there. The other sides were public passage-ways to the church. Now only the iron grooves of the gates of separation remain, and the four walks were thronged with people. Little girls in the white dresses of their First Communion, veiled and crowned with roses, were hurrying to their places; an old grandmother, with her arm around one of the little communicants, knelt by a column, gazing up to the Virgin of the cloister-close; proud and anxious parents led their children into church, and friends met and kissed on both cheeks. In one corner, an old woman was driving a busy trade in penny-worths of barley candy. Diminutive altar-boys in white lace cassocks and red, fur-trimmed capes, offered religious papers for sale. It was a harvest day for beggars, and “for the love of the good God” many a sou was given into feeble dirty hands.

“IT WAS A LOW-VAULTED, SOMBRE LITTLE CLOISTER.” CAVAILLON. [To List]

For a time the traveller walked about the Cloister, so tiny and worn a Cloister that on any other day it must have seemed melancholy indeed. So low a vaulting is not often found, massive and rounded and seeming to press, lowering, above the head. The columns, which help to support its weight, are short and heavy and thick, so worn that their capitals are sometimes only suggestive and sometimes meaningless. On one side the carving is distinctly Corinthian; on another altogether lacking. Between the columns, one could glance into a close so small that ten paces would measure its length. It was a charming little spot, all filled with flowers and plants that told of some one's constant, tender care. From above the nodding flowers and leaves rose the statue of the Madonna and the Child.

The tolling bell called laggards to Mass. With them, the traveller entered the church, and found it so crowded that it was only after receiving many knocks from incoming children, and sundry blows on the head and shoulders from ladies who carried their chairs too carelessly, after minutes of time and a store of patience, that he finally reached a haven, a corner of the Chapel of Saint-VÉran. There, under the care of the Cathedral's Patron, he escaped further injuries and assisted at a long, interesting ceremony.

Mass had already begun, but the voice of the priest and the answering organ were lost in the movement of excited friends, the murmur of questions, and the clatter of nailed shoes on the stone floor. A Suisse, halberd in hand, and gorgeous in tri-cornered hat and the red and gold of office, kept the aisle-ways open with firm but kind insistence; and the priests who were directing the children in the body of the church, were wise enough to overlook the disorder, which was not irreverence, but interest. For days, everybody had been thinking of this ceremony; everybody wanted “good places.” But few found them. For the little nave of the church was chiefly given up to the communicants. They sat on long benches, facing each other. The boys, sixty or seventy of them, were nearest the Altar; the girls, even more numerous, nearest the door. A young priest walked between the rows of boys and the old, panting Father directed the girls.

The whole interior of the church, at whose consecration no less a prelate than Pope Innocent IV had presided, is small and its plan is essentially of the ProvenÇal type. The high tunnel vault rests, like that of Orange, on double arches; and as the nave is very narrow and its light very dim, the church seems lofty, sombre, and impressive, with a very serious dignity which its detail fails to carry out. The chapels, which lie between the heavy buttresses, are dim recesses which increase the darkened effect of the interior. Of the ten, only three differ essentially from the general plan; and although of the XVII century, their style is so severe and they are so ill-lighted that they do not greatly debase the church. The choir is entered from under a rounded archway, and its dome is loftier than the nave and much more beautiful than the semi-dome of the apse, whose roof, in these practical modern times, has been windowed.

That which almost destroys the effect of the church's fine lines and would be intolerable in a stronger light, is the mass of gilt and polychrome with which the interior is covered. The altars are monstrously showy, the walls and buttresses are coloured, and even the interesting, sculptured figures beneath the corbels have been carefully tinted. The dead arise with appropriate mortuary pallor, the halo of Christ is pure gold, and all the draperies of God and His saints are in true, primary shadings.

From the contemplation of this misuse of paint, and of a sadly misplaced inner porch of the XVII century, the traveller's attention was recalled to the old priest. His hand was raised, the eye of every little girl was fixed on him and instantly, in their soft, shrill voices, they began the verse of a hymn. The traveller glanced down the nave. Every boy was on his feet, white ribbons hanging bravely from the right arm, the Crown of Thorns correctly held in one white-gloved hand, a Crucifix fastened with a bow of ribbon to the coat lapel. Every eye was on the young priest, who also raised his hand. Then they sang, as the girls had sung, and with a right lusty will. And then, under the guiding hands, both boys and girls sang together. There was a silence when their voices died away, and from the altar a deep voice slowly chanted “Ite; missa est,” and the High Mass of the First Communion Day was over.

Outside, little country carts stood near the church, and fathers and brothers in blue blouses were waiting for the little communicants who had had so long and so exciting a morning. Walking about with the crowds, the traveller saw an exterior whose faÇade was plainly commonplace and whose bare lateral walls were patched, and crowded by other walls. Finally he came upon the apse, the most interesting part of the church's exterior; and he leaned against a cafÉ wall and looked across the little square.

Externally, the apse of Saint-VÉran has five sides, and each side seems supported by a channelled column. The capitals of these columns are carved with leaves or with leaves and grotesques; on them round arches rest; and above is a narrow foliated cornice. In relieving contrast to the artificial classicism of the Renaissance of the interior, the feeling of this apse is quite truly ancient and pagan, and it is not less unique nor less charming because it is placed against a plain, uninteresting wall. The eye travelling upward, above the choir-dome, meets the lantern with its rounded windows and pointed roof, and by its side the high little bell-turret which completes a curious exterior; an exterior which is interesting and even beautiful in detail, but irregular and heterogeneous as a whole.

The Cathedral of Cavaillon is one of many possibilities. Although small like those of its ProvenÇal kindred, it has more dignity than Orange, more simplicity of interior line than the present Avignon, and it is to be regretted that it should have suffered no less from restoration than from old age.

“THE CATHEDRAL'S TOWER AND TURRET.”—CAVAILLON. [To List]

Apt.

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Few of the Cathedral-churches of the Midi are without holy relics, but none is more famous, more revered, and more authentic a place of pilgrimage than the Basilica of Apt. It came about in this way, says local history. When Martha, Lazarus, and the Holy Marys of the Gospels landed in France, they brought with them the venerated body of Saint Anne, the Virgin's Mother; and Lazarus, being a Bishop, kept the holy relic at his episcopal seat of Marseilles. Persecutions arose, and dangers innumerable; and for safety's sake the Bishop removed Saint Anne's body to Apt and sealed it secretly in the wall. For centuries, Christians met and prayed in the little church, unconscious of the wonder-working relic hidden so near them; and it was only through a miracle, in Charlemagne's time and some say in his presence, that the holy body was discovered. This is the history which a sacristan recites to curious pilgrims as he leads them to the sub-crypt.

The sub-crypt of Sainte-Anne, one of the earliest of Gallo-Roman “churches,” is not more than a narrow aisle; its low vault seems to press over the head; the air is damp and chill; and the one little candle which the patient sacristan moves to this side and to that, shows the plain, un-ornamented stone-work and the undoubted masonry of Roman times. It was part of the Aqueduct which carried water to the Theatre in Imperial days, and had become a chapel in the primitive Christian era. At the end which is curved as a choir is a heavy stone, used as an altar; and high in the wall is the niche where the body of the church's patron lay buried for those hundreds of years. It is a gloomy, cell-like place, most curious and most interesting; and as the traveller saw faith in the earnest gaze of some of his fellow-visitors, and doubt in the smiles of others, he wondered what ancient ceremonials, secret Masses, or secret prayers had been said in this tiny chamber, and what rows of phantom-like worshippers had filed in and out the dark corridor.

Directly above is the higher upper crypt of the church, a diminutive but true choir, with its tiny altar and ambulatory,—a jewel of the Romanesque, heavy and plain and beautifully proportioned, with columns and vaulting in perfect miniature. This, from its absolute purity of style, is the most interesting part of the church; and being a crypt, it is also the most difficult to see. In vain the sacristan ran from side to side with his little candle, in vain the traveller gazed and peered,—the little church was full of shadows and mysteries, dark and lost under the weight of the great choir above.

“THE MAIN BODY OF THE CHURCH.”—APT. [To List]

Even the main body of the church, above ground, is dimly lighted by small, rounded windows above the arches of the nave, and from the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel. Doubtless, on Sundays after High Mass, when the great doors are opened, the merry sun of Provence casts its cheerful rays far up the nave. But this is a church which is the better for its shadows. A Romanesque aisle of the IX or X century, built by that same Bishop Alphant who had seen the construction of the little crypt church, a central nave of the XI century, Romanesque in conception, and a north aisle of poor ProvenÇal Gothic make a large but inharmonious interior. Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre massiveness are not without impressiveness.

The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. The heavy arch which supports the clock tower forms an arcade across a narrow street and makes it picturesque without adding dignity to the church itself. The walls are unmeaning, often hidden by buildings, and there is not a portal worthy of description. There is the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel with a huge statue of the Patron, and the lantern of the central dome ending in a pointed roof; but each addition to the exterior seems only an ignorant or a spiteful accentuation of the general architectural confusion.

To the faithful Catholic, the interest of Sainte-Anne of Apt lies in its wonderful and glorious relics. Here are the bodies of Saint ElÉazer and Sainte Delphine his wife, a couple so pious that every morning they dressed a Statue of the Infant Jesus, and every night they undressed it and laid it to rest in a cradle. There is also the rosary of Sainte Delphine whose every bead contained a relic; and before the Revolution there were other treasures innumerable. During many years Apt has been the pilgrim-shrine of the Faithful, and great and small offerings of many centuries have been laid before the miracle-working body of the Virgin's sainted Mother.

THE VIRGIN AND SAINT ANNE.
By Benzoni. [To List]

The most famous of those who came praying and bearing gifts was Anne of Austria, whose petition for the gift of a son, an heir for France, was granted in the birth of Louis XIV. In gratitude, the Queen enriched the church by vestments wrought in thread of gold and many sacred ornaments; and at length she commanded Mansart to replace the little chapel in which she had prayed, by a larger and more sumptuous one, a somewhat uninteresting structure in the showy style of the XVII century, which is now the resting-place of Saint Anne. In this chapel is the most beautiful of the church's treasures which, strange to say, is a piece of modern sculpture given by the present “Monseigneur of Avignon.” It is small, and badly placed on a marble altar of discordant toning, with a draped curtain of red gilt-fringed velvet for its background. Yet in spite of these inartistic surroundings it has lost none of its tender charm. Seated, with a scroll on her knees, the aged mother is earnestly teaching the young Virgin who stands close by her side. The slender old hand with its raised forefinger emphasises the lesson, and the loving expression of the wrinkled, ascetic face, the attentiveness of the Virgin and her slim young figure, make a touching picture, and a beautiful example of the power of the modern chisel. Yet faith in shrines and miraculous power is not, in this XX century, as pure nor as universal as in the days of the past; and Faith, in ProvenÇal Apt which possesses so large a part of the Saint's body, is not as simple, and therefore not as strong as in Breton Auray which has but a part of her finger. Republicanism in the south country is not too friendly to the Church, kings and queens no longer come with prodigal gifts, and Sainte-Anne of Apt has not the peasant strength of Sainte-Anne of Auray. And in spite of the great feast-day of July, in spite of Aptoisian pride, in spite of the devotion and prayers of faithful worshippers, the Cathedral of Apt is a church of past rather than of present glories.

Riez.

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Just as the church-bells were chiming the morning Angelus, and the warm sun was rising on a day of the early fall, a traveller drove out of old Manosque. He had no gun,—therefore he had not come for the hunting; he had no brass-bound, black boxes, and therefore could not be a “Commis.” What he might be, he well knew, was troubling the brain of the broad-backed man sitting before him, who, with many a long-drawn “Ou-ou-u-u-” was driving a fat little horse. But native courtesy conquered natural curiosity and they drove in silence to the long, fine bridge that spans the river of evil repute:

“Parliament, Mistral, and Durance
Are the three scourges of Provence.”

At that time of year, however, the Durance usually looks peaceable and harmless enough; half its great bed is dry and pebbly, and the water that rushes under the big arches of the bridge is not great in volume. But the size and strength of the bridge itself and certain huge rocks, placed for a long distance on either side of the road, are significant of floods and of the spring awakening of the monstrous river that, like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has two lives.

“THE FORTIFIED MONASTERY OF THE TEMPLARS.”—(NEAR GRÉOUX). [To List]

The road wound about the low hills of the Alps, past a massive, fortified monastery of the Templars whose windows gape in ruin; past Saint-Martin-de-BrÔmes with its high, slim, crenellated watch-tower; past many quiet little villages where in the old times, Taine says, “Good people lived as in an eagle's nest, happy as long as they were not slain—that was the luxury of the feudal times.” Between these villages lay vast groves of the grey-green olive-trees, large flourishing farms, and, further still, the bleak mountains of the Lower Alps. It was toward them the driver was turning, for rising above a smiling little valley, surrounded by fields of ripened grain, lay Riez. A donjon stands above a broken wall, on the hillside houses cluster around a church's spire, and alone, on the top of the hill, stands the little Chapel of Saint-Maxime, the only relic of the Great Seminary that was destroyed by the Revolutionists of '89. Here, after the destruction of one of the several Cathedrals of Riez, the Bishop celebrated Masses, but the little chapel was never consecrated a Cathedral. It has been recently restored and re-built in an uninteresting style,—the exterior is bare to ugliness, the interior so painted that the six old Roman columns which support the choir are overwhelmed by the banality of their surroundings. The plateau on which the chapel is built is now almost bare; olive-trees grow to its edges and there is no trace of the Seminary that was once so full of active life. The traveller, sitting in the shade of the few pine-trees, looked over the broad view toward the peaks whose bare rocks rise with awful sternness, and the little hills that stand between them and the valley, till finally his eyes wandered to the town beneath, and the firm, broad roads which approach it from every direction. For Riez, although in the lost depths of Provence, far from railways and tourists, is a bee-hive of industry, largely supplying the necessities of these secluded little towns. Its hat-making, rope factories, and tanneries are quite important; the shops of its main streets are not without a tempting attractiveness, and there is all the provincial stateliness of Saint-Remy with much less stagnancy.

Riez was the Albece Reiorum Apollinarium in the Colonia Julia Reiorum of the Romans, but there are very few traces of the city with this high-sounding name. The whole atmosphere of the little town is XII century. Two of its old gates, part of the wall, and the crenellated tower still stand, with ruined convents and monasteries of Capuchins, Cordeliers, and Ursulines; and it may be inferred from the remains of the Bishop's Palace and the broad promenade which was one of its avenues, and from the episcopal chÂteau at Montagnac, that ecclesiastical state was not less worthily upheld at Riez than in the other Sees of the South of France.

Many difficulties, however, had beset the Cathedral-building prelates. Their first church, Notre-Dame-du-SiÈge, dating partly from the foundation of the See in the IV century, partly from the X and XII centuries, was destroyed by storm and flood, and its site near the treacherous little river being considered too perilous, a new Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-SiÈge and Saint-Maxime was begun; and it was then that the Bishops celebrated temporarily at Saint-Maxime's on the hill.

During the Revolution the See was suppressed; the church has been much re-built and changed; so that only a tower which is part of the present Notre-Dame-du-SiÈge, and the traces of the earliest foundation near the little Colostre, remain to tell of the different Cathedrals of Riez.

“THE TOWER OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-SIÈGE.”—RIEZ. [To List]

Near the site of the oldest church is one of the few monuments of a very early Christianity which have escaped the perils of time. It is of unknown date, and although it is said to have been part of the Cathedral which stood between it and the river, it appears to have been always an independent and separate building. The peasants say that in the memory of their forefathers it was used as a chapel, they call it indefinitely “the Pantheon,” “the Temple,” or “the Chapel of Saint-Clair,” but it was almost certainly a baptistery of that curious and beautiful type which was abandoned so early in the evolution of Christian architecture.

“NOTHING COULD BE MORE QUAINTLY OLD AND MODEST THAN THE BAPTISTERY.”—RIEZ. [To List]

Following the road which his innkeeper pointed out, the traveller became so absorbed in the busy movement of the communal threshing-ground, the arrival of the yellow grain, the women who were wielding pitchforks, and the horses moving in circles, with solemn rhythm, that he nearly passed a low building, the object of his search. Nothing could be more quaintly old and modest than the baptistery of Riez. It is a small square building of rough cemented stone whose stucco has worn away. The roof is tiled, and from out a flattened dome, blades of grass sprout sparsely. A tiny bell-turret and an arch in the front wall complete the ornamentation of this humble, diminutive bit of architecture, and except that it is different from the usual ProvenÇal manner of construction, one would pass many times without noticing it.

“BETWEEN THE COLUMNS AN ALTAR HAS BEEN PLACED.”—BAPTISTERY, RIEZ. [To List]

Walking down the steps which mark the differences that time has made in the levels of the ground and entering a small octagonal hall, one of the most interesting interiors of Provence meets the eye. “Each of its four sides,” writes Jules de LauriÈre, “which correspond to the angles of the outer square, has a semicircular apse built in the walls themselves. The eight columns, placed in a circle about the centre of the edifice, divide it into a circular nave and a central rotunda, and support eight arches which, in turn, support an octagonal drum, and above this is the dome.” This room is of simple and charming architectural conception, and even in melancholy ruin, it has much beauty. It gains in comparison with the re-constructed baptisteries of Provence, for something of a primitive character has been preserved to which such modern altars and XVII century trappings as those of Aix and FrÉjus are fatal. Under the heavy dust there is visible an unhappy coating of whitewash, traces of a fire still blacken the walls, fragments of Roman sculpture are scattered about, and between the columns a pagan altar has been placed for safe-keeping. The columns themselves are of pagan construction, and as they differ somewhat in size and capitals, it is not improbable that they came from the ruins of several of the great public buildings of Riez. At the time of the baptistery's construction, the barbaric invasion had begun, and these Roman monuments may have been in ruins; but in any case, it was a pious and justifiable custom of Christians to take from pagan structures, standing or fallen, stones and pillars that would serve for building churches to the “one, true God.” The pillars procured for this laudable purpose at Riez, with their beautiful, carved capitals, gave the little baptistery its one decoration, and far from disturbing the simplicity of its style, they add a slenderness and height and harmony to a room which, without them, would be too stiffly bare. In the rotunda which they form, excavations have brought to light a baptismal pool, and conduits which brought to it sufficient quantities of water for the immersion—whole or partial—that was part of the baptismal service of the early Church. But the archÆological work has abruptly ceased, and it is to be deeply regretted that here, in this deserted place, where the Church desires no present restorations in accordance with particular rites or modern styles of architecture, there should not be a complete rehabilitation, a baptistery restored to the actual state of its own era.

“THE BEAUTIFUL GRANITE COLUMNS.”—RIEZ. [To List]

Wandering across the fields, with the re-constructive mania strong upon him, the traveller came across the beautiful granite columns which with their capitals, bases, and architraves of marble, are the last standing monument of Riez's Roman greatness. Fragments of sculpture, bits of stone set in her walls, exist in numbers; but they are too isolated, too vague, to suggest the lost beauty and grandeur which these lonely columns express. He gazed at them in wonder. Was he stepping where once had been a grand and busy Forum, was he looking at the Temple of some great Roman god? The voices of the threshers sounded cheerily, the ProvenÇal sun shone bright and warm, but one of the greatest of mysteries was before him,—the silent mystery of a dead past that had once been a living present. He sat by the river, and tossed pebbles into its shallow waters; the slanting rays of the sun gave the columns delicate tints, old yellows and greys and violets, and at length, as evening fell, they seemed to grow higher and whiter in the paler light, until they looked like lonely funereal shafts, recalling to the memory of forgetful man, Riez's long-dead greatness.

Senez.

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In the comfortable civilisation of France, the stage-coach usually begins where the railroad ends; and however remote a destination or tedious a journey, an ultimate and safe arrival is reasonably certain. This was the reflection which cheered the traveller when he began to search for Senez, an ancient city of the Romans which was christianised in the early centuries and enjoyed the rank of Bishopric until the Revolution of '89. In spite of this dignified rank and the tenacity of an ancient foundation, it lies so far from modern ken that even worthies who live fifty miles away could only say that “Senez is not much of a place, but it doubtless may be found ten—perhaps fifteen—or even twenty kilometres behind the railroad.”

“If Monsieur alighted at BarrÊme, probably the mail for Senez would be left there too. And where letters go, some man or beast must carry them, and one could always follow.”

With these vague directions, the traveller set gaily out for BarrÊme, where a greater than he had spent one bleak March night on the anxious journey from Elba to Paris. The town shows no trace of Napoleon's hurried visit. It looks a mere sleepy hamlet, and when the traveller left the train he had already decided to push his journey onward.

“To Senez?” A man stepped up in answer to his inquiry. “Certainly there was a way to get there, the mail-coach started in an hour. And a hotel? A very good hotel—not Parisian perhaps, but hot food, a bottle of good wine, and a clean bed. Could one desire more on this earth?”

The traveller thought not, and left the station—to stand transfixed before the most melancholy conveyance that ever bore the high-sounding name of “mail-coach.” A little wagon in whose interior six thin persons might have crowded, old windows shaking in their frames, the remains of a coat of yellow paint, and in front a seat which a projecting bit of roof protected from the sun,—this was the mail-coach of Senez, drawn by a dejected, small brown mule, ragged with age, and a gaunt white horse who towered above him. To complete the equipage, this melancholy pair were hitched with ropes.

In due course of time the driver came, hooked an ancient tin box marked “Lettres” to the dash-board, threw in a sacking-bag, and cap in hand, invited the traveller to mount with him “where there was air.” The long whip cracked authoritatively, the postilion, a beautiful black dog, jumped to the roof, and the mail-coach of Senez, with rattle and creak, started on its scheduled run.

“Houp-lÀ, thou bag of lazy bones done up in a brown skin! Ho-lÀ, thou whited sepulchre, thinkest thou I will get out and carry thee? Take this and that.”

“THE MAIL-COACH OF SENEZ.” [To List]

On either side the whip hit the road ferociously, but the old beasts of burden shook their philosophic heads and slowly jogged on, knowing well they would not be touched.

The hot sun of Provence, which “drinks a river as man drinks a glass of wine,” shone on the long, white “route nationale” that stretched out in well-kept monotony through a valley which might well have been named “Desolation.” On either hand rose mountains that were great masses of bare, seared rocks, showing the ravages of forgotten glaciers; the soil that once covered them lay at their feet. Scarcely a shrub pushed out from the crevices, and even along the road, the few thin poplars found the poorest of nourishment.

Crossing a small bridge, there came into view an ancient village, a mere handful of clustered wooden roofs, irregular, broken, and decayed.

“It was a city in the days when we were Romans,” said the Courier, “and they say that there are treasures underneath our soil. But who can tell when people talk so much? And certainly two sous earned above ground buy hotter soup than one can gain in many a search for twenty francs below.”

He whipped up for a suitable and striking entry into town, turned into a lane, and with much show of difficulty in reining up, stood before the “hotel.”

The traveller, having descended, entered a room that might have been the subject of a quaint Dutch canvas. He saw a low ceiling, smoky walls, long rows of benches, a sanded floor, and pine-board tables that stretched back to an open door; and through the open door, the pot swinging above the embers of the kitchen fire. The mistress of the inn, a strong white-haired woman of seventy, came hurrying in to greet her guest. “It was late,” she said, and quickly put a basin full of water, a new piece of soap, and a fresh towel on a chair near the kitchen door; and as the traveller prepared himself for dinner he heard the crackling of fresh boughs upon the fire and the cheerful singing of the pot. Little lamps were lighted, and when he came to his table's end, he found good country wine and a steaming cabbage-soup. Others came in to dine and smoke and talk, and later from his bed-room window, he saw their ghostly figures moving up and down the unlighted streets and heard them say good-night. The inn-door was noisily and safely barred, and when the retreating footsteps and the voices had died away, the quiet of the dark remained unbroken until a watchman, with flickering lantern, passed, and cried aloud “All's well.”

“THE OPEN SQUARE.”—SENEZ. [To List]

Next morning the sun shone brightly on Senez, and the traveller hurried to the open square. A horse, carrying a farmer's boy, meandered slowly by, a chicken picked here and there, and water trickled slowly from the tiny faucet of the village fountain.

“THE PALACE OF ITS PRELATES.”—SENEZ. [To List]

In this quiet spot, near the lonely desolation of the hills, is the Cathedral. The Palace of its prelates, which is opposite, is now a farm-house where hay-ricks stand in the front yard, and windows have been walled up because ProvenÇal winds are cold and glass is dear.

“THE CATHEDRAL.”—SENEZ. [To List]

Looking at this residence, one would think that the last Bishops of Senez were insignificant priests, steeped in country wine and country stagnancy. But such a supposition is very far from true. For we know that in the XVIII century, Jean Soannen, Bishop of the city, was called before a Council at Embrun to answer a charge of resistance to the far-famed Bull “Unigenitus,” and so strong were his convictions and so great his loyalty to his conscience, that he resisted the Council as well as the Bull, and was deprived of his See as a Jansenist and recalcitrant, and exiled to the Abbey of La-Chaise-Dieu. In quiet Senez there must always have been time for reflection, and one can imagine the bitter struggle of this brave man as he walked the rooms of the Palace, as he crossed and re-crossed the small square to the Cathedral. One can imagine his wrestling with God and his conscience every time that he celebrated a Mass for the people before the Cathedral's altar. One can understand the bitter fight between two high ideals, irreconcilable in his life,—that of work in God's vineyard or of doctrinal purity as he saw it. He had to choose between them, this Bishop of Senez, and when he left the town to answer the summons of the Council at Embrun, his heart must have been sore within him, he must have said farewell to many things. Few decisions can be more serious than the renunciation of family and home for the service of God, few more solemn than the struggles between the flesh and the spirit; but no more pathetic picture can exist than that sad figure of Jean Soannen; for he had renounced family and the world, and for the sake of “accepted truth” which was false to him, endured helpless, solitary insignificance under the espionage of suspicious and unfriendly monks. The traveller remembered his tomb, that tomb in a small chapel near the foot of the stair-case in the famous Abbey far-away, and sighing, hoped that in his mournful exile, the Bishop may have realised that “they also serve who only stand and wait.”

The Bull Unigenitus, which caused his downfall, is believed to have caused, during the last years of Louis XIV's bigotry, the persecution of thirty thousand respectable, intelligent, and orderly Frenchmen. De Noailles, several Bishops, and the Parliament of Paris refused to accept it, though they stopped short of open rebellion, and even FÉnÉlon “submitted” rather than acceded to it. This famous and vexatious document was an unhappy emanation of Pope Clement XIII. Hard pressed by his faithful supporters, the Jesuits, he promulgated it in 1713, and it condemns with great explicitness one hundred and one propositions which are taken from Quesnel's Jansenistic “RÉflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament.” The Jesuits held the Jansenists in a horror which the Jansenists reciprocated; the Pope owed almost too heavy a debt of gratitude to the order of Saint Ignatius and was constrained to repay. But the Bull, instead of procuring peace, brought the greatest affliction and desolation of mind to His Holiness, and when later, the French envoy asked him why he had condemned such an odd number of propositions, the Pope seizing his arm burst into tears.

“Ah Monsieur Amelot! Monsieur Amelot! What would you have me do? I strove hard to curtail the list, but PÈre Le Tellier”—Louis XIV's last confessor and a devoted Jesuit—“had pledged his word to the King that the book contained more than one hundred errors, and with his foot on my neck, he compelled me to prove him right. I condemned only one more!”

The Cathedral of Senez is an humble village church where frank and simple poverty exists with the remains of ancient splendour. It is small, as are all churches of its style, and although it does not lack a homely dignity, it is a modest work of XII century Romanesque, and the sonorous title of its consecration in 1242, “the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” suggests an impressiveness which the Cathedral never had.

Two heavy buttresses that support the faÇade wall are reminiscent of the more majestic Notre-Dame-du-Bourg of Digne, and on them rest the ends of a pointed gable-roof. Between these buttresses, the wall is pierced by a long and graceful round-arched window, and below the window is the single, pointed portal whose columns are gone and whose delicate foliated carvings and mouldings are sadly worn away. A sun-dial painted on the wall tells the time of day, and at the gable's sharpest point a saucy little angel with a trumpet in his mouth blows with the wind.

THE CATHEDRAL.—SENEZ. [To List]

Entering the little portal, the traveller saw the poor wooden benches of the congregation massed together, and beyond them, the stalls of long-departed Canons. In front of these old stalls, stood the church's latest luxury, a melodeon, and above them hung the tapestries of its richer past. Tapestries also beautify the choir-walls, and on either side, are the narrow transepts and the apses of a good old style. There are also poor and tawdry altars which stand in strange, pitiable contrast with the old walls and the fine tunnel vaulting, the dignified architecture of the past.

“TAPESTRIES BEAUTIFY THE CHOIR WALLS.”—SENEZ. [To List]

Leaving the interior, where a solitary peasant knelt in prayer, the traveller saw side-walls bare as the mountains round about, the squat tower that rises just above the roof, and coming to the apse-end he found the presbytery garden. From the garden, beyond the fallen gate, he saw the church as the CurÉ saw it, the three round apses with their little columns, the smaller decorative arches of the cornices, the pointed roof, and between branches full of apple blossoms, the softened lines of the low square tower. Here, trespassing, the CurÉ found him. And after they had walked about the town, and talked the whole day long of the great world which lay so far beyond, they went into the little garden as the sun was going down, and fell to musing over coffee cups. The priest was first to speak.

“Perhaps, buried under those old church walls, lie proofs of our early history, the stones of some old Temple, or statues of its gods; for we were once Sanitium, a Roman city in a country of six Roman roads. Perhaps all around us were great monuments of pagan wealth, a Mausoleum near these bare old rocks like that which stands in loneliness near Saint-Remy, Villas, Baths, or Triumphal Arches.”

The keen eyes softened, as he continued in gentle irony, “Down in this little valley of the Asse de Blieux, our town seems far away from any scene in which the great ones of earth took part. Although I know that it is true, it often seems to me a legend that the gay and gallant Francis I, rushing to a mad war, stopped on his way to injure us; and that four hundred years ago a band of Huguenots raved around our old Cathedral, and tried to pull it to the ground.”

“And do you think it can be true,” the traveller asked, “that Bishops held mysterious prisoners in that tower for most dreary lengths of time?”

“BETWEEN BRANCHES FULL OF APPLE-BLOSSOMS, THE CHURCH AS THE CURÉ SAW IT.”—SENEZ. [To List]

The CurÉ smiled, and shook his white head. “That is a story which the peasants tell,—an old tradition of the land. It may be true, since priests are mortal men and doubtless dealt with sinners.” He smiled indulgently. “Through the many years I have been here, I have often wondered about all these things, but it is seldom I can speak my thoughts. Sometimes when I am here alone, I lose the sense of present things and seem to see the phantoms of the past. Then the dusk comes on, as it is coming now; the night blots Senez from my sight as fate has blotted out its record from history,—and I realise that our human memory is in vain.”

Aix.

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The old Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur at Aix is not one of those rarely beautiful churches where a complete and restful homogeneity delights the eye, nor is it a church of crude and shocking transitions. It is rather a well-arranged museum of ecclesiastical architecture, where, in sufficient historical continuity and harmony, many ProvenÇal conceptions are found, and the evolution of ProvenÇal architecture may be very completely followed. As in all collections, the beauty of Saint-Sauveur is not in a general view or in any glance into a long perspective, but in a close and loving study of the details it encloses; and so charming, so really beautiful are many of the diverse little treasures of Aix, that such study is better repaid here than in any other ProvenÇal Cathedral. For this is one of the largest Cathedrals of the province, and the buildings which form the ecclesiastical group are most complete. With its baptistery, Cloister, church, and arch-episcopal Palace, it is not only of many epochs and styles, but of many historical uncertainties, and the hypotheses of its construction are enough to daze the most hardened archÆologist.

“THE SOUTH AISLE.”—AIX. [To List]

The oldest part of the Cathedral is the baptistery, and the date of its origin is unknown. Much of its character was lost in a restoration of the XVII century, but its old round form, the magnificent Roman columns of granite and green marble said to have been part of the Temple to Apollo, give it an atmosphere of dignity and an ancient charm that even the XVII century—so potent in architectural evil—was unable to destroy.

THE ROMANESQUE PORTAL. [To List]

In 1060, after the destructive vicissitudes of the early centuries, Archbishop Rostaing d'HyÈres issued a pastoral letter appealing to the Faithful to aid him in the re-building of a new Cathedral; and it may be reasonably supposed that the nave which is at present the south aisle, the baptistery, and the Cloisters were the buildings that were dedicated less than fifty years later. They are the only portions of the church which can be ascribed to so early a period, and with the low door of entrance, the single nave and the adjoining cloister-walk, they constitute the usual plan of XI century Romanesque. Considering this as the early church, in almost original form, it will be seen that the portal is a very interesting example of the ProvenÇal use not only of Roman suggestion, but of the actual fragments of Roman art which had escaped the invader; that the south aisle, in itself a completed interior, bears a close resemblance to Avignon; and that the Cloister, although now very worn and even defaced, must have been one of the quaintest and most delicate, as it is one of the tiniest, in Provence. Three sides of its arcades support plain buildings of a later date; the fourth stands free, as if in ruin. Little coupled columns, some slenderly circular, some twisted, and some polygonal, rest on a low wall; piers, very finely and differently carved, are at each of the arcade angles; the little capitals of the columns were once beautifully cut, and even the surfaces of the arches have small foliated disks and rosettes and are finished in roll and hollow. Unfortunately, a very large part of this detail-work is so defaced that its subjects are barely suggested, some are so eaten away that they are as desolate of beauty as the barren little quadrangle; and the whole Cloister seems to have reached the brink of that pathetic old age which Shakespeare has described, and that another step in the march of time would leave it “sans everything.”

THE CLOISTER.—AIX. [To List]

About two hundred years later, in 1285, the Archbishop of Aix found the Cathedral too unpretending for the rank and dignity of the See, and he began the Gothic additions. Like many another prelate his ambitions were larger than his means; and the history of Saint-Sauveur from the XIII to the XIX century, is that oft-told tale of new indulgences offered for new contributions, halts and delays in construction, emptied treasuries, and again, appeals and fresh efforts. The beginnings of the enlarged Cathedral were architecturally abrupt. The old nave, becoming the south aisle, was connected with the new by two small openings; it retained much of its separateness and in spite of added chapels much actual isolation. The Gothic nave, the north aisle and its many chapels, the apse, and the transepts, whose building and re-construction stretched over the long period between the XIII and XVII centuries, are comparatively regular, uniform, and uninteresting. The most ambitious view is that of the central nave, whose whole length is so little broken by entrances to the side aisles, that it seems almost solidly enclosed by its massive walls. Here in Gothic bays, are found those rounded, longitudinal arches which belong to the Romanesque and to some structure whose identity is buried in the mysterious past. The choir, with its long, narrow windows, and clusters of columnettes, is very pleasing, and its seven sides, foreign to Provence, remind one of Italian and Spanish constructive forms and take one's memory on strange jaunts, to the far-away Frari in Venice and the colder Abbey of London. From the choir of Saint-Sauveur two chapels open; and one of them is a charming bit of architecture, a replica in miniature of the mother-apse itself. The paintings of this mother-apse are neutral, its glass has no claim to sumptuousness, and the stalls are very unpretending; but above them hang tapestries ascribed to Matsys, splendid hangings of the Flemish school that were once in old Saint Paul's.

With these beautiful details the rich treasure-trove of the interior is exhausted, and one passes out to study the details of the exterior. The Cathedral's single tower, which rises behind the faÇade line, was one of the parts that was longest neglected,—perhaps because a tower is less essential to the ritual than any other portion of an ecclesiastical building. Begun in 1323, the work dragged along with many periods of absolute idleness, until 1880, when a balustrade with pinnacles at each angle was added to the upper octagonal stage, and the building of the tower was thus ended. The octagon with its narrow windows rests on a plain, square base that is massively buttressed. It is a pleasant, rather than a remarkable tower, and one's eye wanders to the more beautiful faÇade. Here, encased by severely plain supports, is one of the most charming portals of ProvenÇal Gothic. Decorated buttresses stand on either side of a large, shallow recess which has a high and pointed arch, and in the centre, a slim pier divides the entrance-way into two parts, pre-figuring the final division of the Just and the Unjust. A multitude of finely sculptured statues were formerly hidden in niches, under graceful canopies, and in the hundred little nooks and corners which lurk about true Gothic portals. Standing Apostles and seated Patriarchs, baby cherubs peering out, and the more dramatic composition of the tympanum—the Transfiguration,—all lent a dignity and wealth to Saint-Sauveur. Unfortunately many of these sculptures were torn from their crannies in the great Revolution; and it is only a few of the heavenly hosts,—the gracious Madonna, Saint Michael, and the Prophets,—that remain as types of those that were so wantonly destroyed. The low, empty gables that sheltered lost statues, their slender, tapering turrets, and the delicate outer curve of the arch, are of admirable, if not imposing, composition. The portal's wooden doors, protected by plain casings, abound in carvings partly Renaissance, partly Gothic. The Sibyls and Prophets stand under canopies, surrounded by foliage, fruits, and flowers, or isolated from each other by little buttresses or pilasters. This Gothic portal quite outshines, in its graceful elaboration, the smaller door which stands near it, in the simpler and not less potent charm of the Romanesque. And side by side, these portals offer a curiously interesting comparison of the essential differences and qualities of their two great styles. If the Romanesque of Saint-Sauveur is far surpassed at Arles and Digne and Sisteron, nowhere in Provence has Gothic richer details; and if the noblest of ProvenÇal creations must be sought in other little cities, the lover of architectural comparisons, of details, of the many lesser things rather than of the harmony of a single whole, will linger long in Aix.

THE CATHEDRAL.—AIX. [To List]

The old city itself shows scarcely a trace of the many historic dramas of which it has been the scene,—the lowering tragedy of the Vaudois time,—the bright, gay comedy of good king RenÉ's Court,—the shorter scenes of Charles V's occupation,—the Parliament's struggle with Richelieu and Mazarin,—the day of the fiery Mirabeau,—the grim melodrama of the Revolution,—all have passed, and time has destroyed their monuments almost as completely as the Saracens destroyed those of the earlier Roman days. Only a few, unformed fragments of the great Temple of Apollo remain in the walls of Saint-Sauveur. The earliest Cathedral, Sainte-Marie-de-la-Seds, has entirely disappeared, the old thermal springs are enclosed by modern buildings, and only the statue of “the good King RenÉ” and the Church of the Knights of Malta give to Aix a faint atmosphere of its past distinction. Who would dream that here were the homes of the elegant and lettered courtiers of King RenÉ's brilliant capital, who would think that this town was the earliest Roman settlement in Gaul, the AquÆ SextiÆ of Baths, Temples, Theatres, and great wealth? Aix is a stately town, a provincial capital which Balzac might well have described—with old, quiet streets that are a little dreary, with a fine avenue shaded by great trees in whose shadows a few fountains trickle, with lines of little stages that come each day from the country,—a city whose life is as far in spirit from the near-by modernity of Marseilles as it is from that of Paris, as quaintly and delightfully provincial as that other little ProvenÇal city, the Tarascon of King RenÉ and of Tartarin.

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