Part 5 (1/2)
Had they, indeed, in a public manner, denounced the vengeance of Heaven against the murderers of the unfortunate Brune, or pointedly rebuked the religious and political animosities subsisting in the south of France, they would have given a proof of their sincerity, but at the risk of much of that good which it was desirable to use their temporal influence in effecting. Instead, therefore, of giving unnecessary offence, they laboured to eradicate from the minds of their hearers the seeds of hatred and uncharitableness, and to divert their attention from their private bickerings and dissensions, to the common guilt of all in the sight of Heaven. The very object which, from all we learn respecting the state of feeling in Languedoc and Provence, appears particularly desirable, appears also to have been sought, not only by repeated and fervent exhortations, but by the exaction also of public vows and promises, so as to enlist the sense of shame as much as possible, in favour of the general forgiveness which the missionaries preached. Their exertions also, always supposing the tract in question to be ent.i.tled to credit, were rewarded by the conduct of their penitents, some of whom put away their vices, and others their mutual animosities. If this be fanaticism, then it were to be wished that such fanaticism should prevail widely in the south of France. ”Out of the same mouth cannot proceed blessing and cursing;” and if the secret object of the Mission be to denounce the disaffected, or preach crusades against Protestants, it must be owned that their public labours at Avignon savour but little of such a purpose, as far as all appearances go.
There is, it is true, something extravagant and bordering on stage effect, in many of the ceremonies performed, and expressions used, as recorded by the pen of M. Fransoy. An Englishman, however, is not always a fair judge of the best means of influencing the mind of a Frenchman, more particularly a south-eastern one. The Provencaux possess, both in appearance and in character, the strong characteristics of a people born under a burning sun; at once lively and ferocious, strongly led away by the excitement of the moment, and ardent in their partialities and antipathies: in short, the same romance of character is perceptible among them, which, in the dark ages, peopled the country with troubadours. The ma.s.s of such a people, particularly when profoundly ignorant, may not be accessible to cool argument; and the manner and style of oratory which would disgust a reasoning Scotch peasant, or English mechanic, may be exactly adapted to act on the temperament of an Avignonese. The surest test, therefore, of the character and design of the Mission, will be the practical effects which it produces on the conduct of its congregation, as well as the future application of those liberal donatives, which have excited so much unfavourable feeling against it. Time and fair play alone can justify the motives of those who planned and conducted it. The question in the mean time is, not whether they may or may not have occasionally gone to the lengths of a ”zeal without knowledge,” but whether or not their purpose has been to instruct and benefit their fellow-countrymen according to the best of their power and belief, and without reference to political party.
CHAP. VIII.
PONT DU GARD--NISMES--MONTPELIER--CETTE.
MAY 13.--This day was fixed on for a journey to Vaucluse, the road to which is better adapted for the accommodation of two wheels than of four. M. Durand, our voiturier, attended accordingly with one of his portly mares harnessed to a sort of cabriolet, very much resembling an Irish noddy. Its high boarded front reaching to our chins, and the little fat person of Durand rather incommoded than accommodated on a cus.h.i.+on tied to the shaft, and much too near the mare on every account, formed a grotesque combination but little in character with what ought to have been a voyage of sentiment. The deficiency in pathos, however, was made up by the poor mare, who bewailed her absent companion with such incessant roarings, as to draw many cuts of the whip, and ”sacra carognas,” from the unrelenting Durand. We were struck, by-the-by, more than once during this day's route, by the Spanish and Italian terminations of the Provencal patois. A village which we pa.s.sed, on an insulated height commanding the road, and crowned by ruined fortifications, is laid down as Chateau Neuf in the map, and called by the peasants Castel Novo. A man of whom we inquired the distance to Avignon, answered ”Tres horas,” using not only the words, but the method of computation which a Spaniard would employ.
Whether we really reached our place of destination, or were stopped short by intense heat and execrable roads, were interested, or overturned, this deponent saith not, nor indeed is it necessary. One may be pardoned for omitting the mention of a subject already so fully described as Vaucluse, its rocks and fountain, its a.s.sociations, and even its eatables; for some travellers have dwelt on the subject of its excellent bisque, or crayfish soup, and its eels, a solace, no doubt, to[34] that gentle degree of melancholy, which Fielding affirms to be a whet to the appet.i.te.
[Footnote 34: ”And do not forget the toasted cheese.” Vide _Matilda Pottingen_ in ”The Rovers.”]
”And, says the anatomic art, The stomach's very near the heart;”
as Peter Pindar also maintains. Some also, with an accuracy worthy Moubrays treatise on domestic fowls, have informed us that the hens near the fountain of Vaucluse are peculiarly prolific in fine eggs, and so on. For my own part, I may as well honestly confess that I am more partial to the memory of Petrarch as a philosopher, a patriot, and reviver of ancient learning, than as the Werter of Troubadours, though in the latter capacity he has stood unrivalled for five hundred years. I must own, also, that the hermitage whither he retired to stifle his rebellious pa.s.sion for the wife of another, however melancholy and impressive the ideas may be which it would of itself excite, is poisoned, in my mind, by the pestilent frivolities with which the mawkish of all ages have defaced its sombre features, in violation of truth and sound feeling. What syllables of dolour the forgotten Della-Cruscan school may have yelled out on the subject, is not worth ascertaining, and probably recollected by few or none. The French, who with all their ingenuity, are not very apt at comprehending the madness of contemplative minds, have caricatured the shade of poor Petrarch most woefully, and[35] the Abbe Delille (peace to his ashes!) has teazed the innocent trees of Vaucluse with embarra.s.sing questions, fitter for the mouths of Susanna's elders. Under such blighting influence, the stern rocks of Vaucluse are transformed into a sentimental tea-garden, the high-minded and melancholy Petrarch into a more ingenious Piercie Shafton, and the virtuous Laura, who probably never saw the place, into a starched Gloriana of the old school, paraded and gallanted round it with all due form. It is, perhaps, a judgment on Petrarch's adulterous Platonism, that it has laid him open to impertinences like these, which would torture his sensitive ghost almost as keenly as oblivion itself, and which very strongly remind one of Punch's intrusion at a tragedy.
Such ideas cannot be engrafted on the [36]Nonwenwerder, or the [36]Pena de los Enamorados, spots on which a simple and obscure legend has thrown an interest which Vaucluse cannot really possess, though embellished by every thing which poetry can do for it.
[Footnote 35: See the Quarterly Review, to which I am obliged for the Abbe's remark.]
[Footnote 36: See Campbell's ballad of ”The Brave Roland,” in one of the numbers of the New Monthly Magazine; and Southey's tale of Manuel and Leila, in his early productions.]
It were to be wished, that the shade of Petrarch could return to his former haunts, to frighten away frivolous visitors, and read a lesson to the thinking. Instead of rejoicing at the posthumous fame which his poetical talents have earned, he would probably dwell on the insufficiency of the highest mental endowments without conduct and self-command. He would also probably describe his pa.s.sion as fostered by the pedantic and high-flown gallantry of the age, and the applauses bestowed on his verses; as increasing and strengthening, after the marriage of Laura had rendered it criminal, without any purpose which his better conscience dared avow, till his eyes at length opened themselves too late to its culpable nature. His mind, of that high-wrought and desponding tone which often characterizes extraordinary genius, and too sincere to trifle with impunity, struggled then fruitlessly against a fatality formerly imagined, but become real; and the flower of his life was pa.s.sed amid illusions and conflicts, in alternate self-deception and self-reproach, in wild and beautiful visions from which he awoke to sickness of heart and weariness of himself and all things, like the victim of a powerful opiate.
Compromising weakly between his pa.s.sion and his conscience, he would say, he secluded himself at Vaucluse from a society which had become dangerous to him, and by the verses which he composed as a vent to his feelings, fixed the illusion too deep to be eradicated by lapse of time, or the indifference of Laura. Such voluntary mental martyrdom resembles the punishment inflicted by some tyrant of history on his prisoners, whom he commanded to embrace his Apega, a beautiful automaton so constructed as to plunge a concealed dagger into their hearts.
The better feelings of Petrarch's readers will dwell with the least alloy on the period after the death of Laura, when he contemplated her as beyond the reach of human ties, affections, or jealousies, and sought only to rescue from oblivion the virtues and purity which had strengthened and refined his pa.s.sion, while they rendered it hopeless.
There is a beautiful pa.s.sage in Campbell which appears exactly written to express his state of mind at this time, and the retrospective glance which he must have often cast on his past life.
”And yet, methinks, when wisdom shall a.s.suage The griefs and pa.s.sions of our greener age, Though dull the close of life, and far away, Each flower that hailed the dawning of our day, Yet o'er her lovely hopes that once were dear, The time-taught spirit, pensive, not severe, With milder griefs her aged eye shall fill, And weep their falsehood, though she love them still!”
The private memorandum,[37] written in the ma.n.u.script Virgil, of this extraordinary man, which is shown in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, may be considered as expressing his most undisguised feelings, as excited by an event which dissolves trifling attachments, while it gives permanence to those of a genuine nature. It was probably intended for no eye but his own. I annex as literal a translation as possible, and from the beauty and ease of their latinity, have been tempted to precede it with the original words.
[Footnote 37: I had procured this doc.u.ment from Milan, and translated it for the press, previous to reading the version of it which is given in the Quarterly.]
”Laura, propriis virtutibus ill.u.s.tris, et meis longum celebrata carminibus, primum oculis meis apparuit sub primum adolescentiae meae tempus, anno Domini 1327, die 6 mensis Aprilis, in ecclesia sanctae Clarae Avinioni, hora matutina. Et in eadem civitate, eodem mense Aprilis, eodem die 6, eadem hora prima, anno autem Domini 1348, ab hac luce lux illa subtracta est, c.u.m ego forte Veronae essem, heu fati mei nescius!
Rumor autem infelix, per literas Ludovici mei, me Parmae reperit, anno eodem, mense Maii, die mane.
”Corpus illud castissimum ac pulcherrimum in loco Fratrum Minorum repositum est ipsa die mortis ad vesperam. Animam quidem ejus, ut de Africano ait Seneca, in coelum, unde erat, rediisse, mihi persuadeo.
”Haec autem, ad acerbam rei memoriam, amara quadam dulcedine scribere visum est; hoc potissimum loco, qui saepe sub oculis meis redit, ut cogitem nihil esse debere quod amplius mihi placeat in hac vita, et effracto majori laqueo, tempus esse de Babylone fugiendi, crebra horum inspectione, ac fugacissimae aetatis aestimatione, commonear. Quod, praevia Dei gratia, facile erit, praeteriti temporis curas supervacuas, spes inanes, et inexpectatos exitus acriter ac viriliter cogitanti.”
”Laura, ill.u.s.trious for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, first appeared to my eyes, in the time of my early youth, on the morning of the sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord 1327, in the church of St. Clare at Avignon; and in the same month of April, on the same first hour of the morning, in the year of our Lord 1348, that light was removed from this light of day, while I by chance was at Verona, unconscious, alas! of my fate. The unhappy news, however, reached me at Parma, in a letter from my friend Ludovico, on the morning of the 19th of May.
”Her most chaste and fair body was buried in the evening of the day of her death, in the convent of the Fratres Minores; but her soul, as Seneca saith of the soul of Africa.n.u.s, hath returned, I am persuaded, to the heaven from whence it came.
”I have felt a kind of bitter pleasure in writing the memorial of this mournful event, the rather in this place, which so often meets my eyes, to the end that I may consider there is nothing left which ought to delight me in this world; and that I may be reminded by the frequent sight of these words, and the due appreciation of this fleeting life, that my princ.i.p.al tie to the world being broken, it is time for me to fly from this Babylon; which, through the preventing grace of G.o.d, will be an easy task, when I reflect deeply and manfully on the superfluous cares, the vain hopes, and the unlooked for events of the time past.”
This simple and affecting tribute, written, as it evidently seems, under such solemn impressions, clears the memory of Laura from the imputation of any thing trifling or criminal, while it sufficiently establishes the ident.i.ty of ”a nymph,” according to Gibbon, ”so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned.”