Part 3 (1/2)
Beaucaire, across the river, is lighted by old tradition, too. It was the home of Auca.s.sin and Nicollette, for one thing, and anyone who has read that poem, either in the original or in Andrew Lang's exquisite translation, will have lived, for a moment at least, in the tender light of legendary tale.
We drove over to Beaucaire, and Narcissa and I scaled a garden terrace to some ruined towers and battlements, all that is left of the ancient seat of the Montmorencys. It is a romantic ruin from a romantic day. It was built back in the twelve hundreds--when there were still knights and troubadours, and the former jousted at a great fair which was held there, and the latter reclined on the palace steps, surrounded by ladies and gallants in silken array, and sang songs of Palestine and the Crusades. As time went on a light tissue of legend was woven around the castle itself--half-mythical tales of its earlier centuries. Figures like Auca.s.sin and Nicollette emerged and were made so real by those who chanted or recited the marvel of their adventures, that they still live and breathe with youth when their gallant castle itself is no more than vacant towers and fragmentary walls. The castle of Beaucaire looks across to the defiant walls of King Rene's castle in Tarascon and I believe there used to be some st.u.r.dy wars between them. If not, I shall construct one some day, when I am less busy, and feeling in the romantic form. It will be as good history as most castle history, and I think I shall make Beaucaire win. King Rene was a good soul, but I am doubtful about those who followed him, and his castle, so suitable to-day for a jail, does not invite sympathy. The Montmorency castle was dismantled in 1632, according to the guidebook, by Richelieu, who beheaded its last tenant--some say with a cleaver, a serviceable utensil for such work.
Beaucaire itself is not a pretty town--not a clean town. I believe Nicollette was shut up for a time in one of its houses--we did not inquire which one--any of them would be bad enough to-day.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”WHERE ROADS BRANCH OR CROSS THERE ARE SIGNBOARDS.... YOU CAN'T ASK A MAN 'QUEL EST LE CHEMIN' FOR ANYWHERE WHEN YOU ARE IN FRONT OF A SIGNBOARD WHICH IS SHOUTING THE INFORMATION”]
It is altogether easy to keep to the road in France. You do not wind in and out with unmarked routes crossing and branching at every turn. You travel a hard, level way, often as straight as a ruling stick and pointed in the right direction. Where roads branch, or cross, there are signboards. All the national roads are numbered, and your red-book map shows these numbers--the chances of mistake being thus further lessened.
We had practiced a good deal at asking in the politest possible French the way to any elusive destination. The book said that in France one generally takes off his hat in making such an inquiry, so I practiced that until I got it to seem almost inoffensive, not to say jaunty, and the formula ”_Je vous demande pardon, but--quel est le chemin pour--_”
whatever the place was. Sometimes I could even do it without putting in the ”but,” and was proud, and anxious to show it off at any opportunity.
But it got dusty with disuse. You can't ask a man ”_quel est le chemin_”
for anywhere when you are on the straight road going there, or in front of a signboard which is shouting the information. I only got to unload that sentence twice between Arles and Avignon, and once I forgot to take off my hat; when I did, the man didn't understand me.
With the blue mountains traveling always at our right, with level garden and vineland about us, we drifted up the valley of the Rhone and found ourselves, in mid-afternoon, at the gates of Avignon. That is not merely a poetic figure. Avignon has veritable gates--and towering crenelated walls with ramparts, all about as perfect as when they were built, nearly six hundred years ago.
We had heard Avignon called the finest existing specimen of a mediaeval walled city, but somehow one does not realize such things from hearing the mere words. We stopped the car to stare up at this overtopping masonry, trying to believe that it had been standing there already three hundred years, looking just about as it looks to-day, when Shakespeare was writing plays in London. Those are the things we never really believe. We only acknowledge them and pa.s.s on.
Very little of Avignon has overflowed its ma.s.sive boundaries; the fields were at our backs as we halted in the great portals. We halted because we noticed the word ”_L'Octroi_” on one of the towers. But, as before, the _l'octroi_ man merely glanced into our vehicle and waved us away.
We were looking down a wide shaded avenue of rather modern, even if foreign, aspect, and full of life. We drove slowly, hunting, as we pa.s.sed along, for one of the hotels set down in the red-book as ”comfortable, with modern improvements,” including ”gar. _grat._”--that is to say, garage gratis, such being the custom of this land.
Narcissa, who has an eye for hotels, spied one presently, a rather imposing-looking place with a long, imposing name. But the management was quite modest as to terms when I displayed our T. C. de France members.h.i.+p card, and the ”gar. _grat._”--this time in the inner court of the hotel itself--was a neat place with running water and a concrete floor. Not very ancient for mediaeval Avignon, but one can worry along without antiquities in a hotel.
Chapter VIII
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Avignon, like Arles, was colonized by the Romans, but the only remains of that time are now in its museum. At Arles the Romans did great things; its heyday was the period of their occupation. Conditions were different at Avignon. Avenio, as they called it, seems to have been a kind of outpost, walled and fortified, but not especially glorified.
Very little was going on at Avenio. Christians were seldom burned there.
In time a Roman emperor came to Arles, and its people boasted that it was to become the Roman capital. Nothing like that came to Avenio; it would require another thousand years and another Roman occupation to mature its grand destiny.
I do not know just how it worried along during those stormy centuries of waiting, but with plenty of variety, no doubt. I suppose barbarians came like summer leaf.a.ge, conquered and colonized, mixing the blood of a new race. It became a republic about twelve hundred and something--small, but tough and warlike--commanding the respect of seigneurs and counts, even of kings. Christianity, meantime, had prospered. Avignon had contributed to the Crusades and built churches. Also, a cathedral, though little dreaming that in its sacristy would one day lie the body of a pope.
Avignon's day, however, was even then at hand. Sedition was rife in Italy and the popes, driven from Rome, sought refuge in France. Near Avignon was a small papal dominion of which Carpentras was the capital, and the pope, then Clement V, came often to Avignon. This was honor, but when one day the Bishop of Avignon was made Pope John XXII, and established his seat in his own home, the little city became suddenly what Arles had only hoped to be--the capital of the world.
If one were permitted American parlance at this point, he would say that a boom now set in in Avignon.[7] Everybody was gay, everybody busy, everybody prosperous. The new pope straightway began to enlarge and embellish his palace, and the community generally followed suit. During the next sixty or seventy years about everything that is to-day of importance was built or rebuilt. New churches were erected, old ones restored. The ancient Roman wall was replaced by the splendid new one.
The papal palace was enlarged and strengthened until it became a mighty fortress--one of the grandest structures in Europe. The popes went back to Rome, then, but their legates remained and from their strong citadel administered the affairs of that district for four turbulent centuries.
In 1791, Avignon united her fortunes to those of France, and through revolution and bloodshed has come again to freedom and prosperity and peace. I do not know what the population of Avignon was in the day of her greater glory. To-day it is about fifty thousand, and, as it is full to the edges, it was probably not more populous then.
We did not hurry in Avignon. We only loitered about the streets a little the first afternoon, practicing our French on the sellers of postal cards. It was a good place for such practice. If there was a soul in Avignon besides ourselves with a knowledge of English he failed to make himself known. Not even in our hotel was there a manager, porter, or waiter who could muster an English word.
Narcissa and I explored more than the others and discovered the City Hall and a theater and a little open square with a big monument. We also got a distant glimpse of some great towering walls which we knew to be the Palace of the Popes.